


The Weight Of Expectation

by weepingwillow



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Child Neglect, Coma, F/M, Incest, Internalized Homophobia, Kidnapping, M/M, Original Character(s), Period-Typical Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 05:19:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingwillow/pseuds/weepingwillow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s the start of the sixties and Arthur, heir to business magnate Uther Pendragon, has always been burdened with certain expectations. Grow up to take over Uther’s businesses, fall in love with a beautiful girl, get married and have children. He always thought that, when the time came, the future would unfold neatly for him and would make him and his father happy. But now; with a business diving towards bankruptcy, a lost son, and an illegal infatuation for Merlin Emrys, Arthur is struggling to see a way to marry up his father’s expectations with what he feels to be right. This is his journey; in longing, in trust, and most of all in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weight Of Expectation

**Author's Note:**

> This has been my first Big Bang, and it's been a labour of love! I'd like to thank my amazing artist, who has created [this](http://raideen9.livejournal.com/1147.html) amazing work. Also thanks so much to Sarah for the beta! You've really helped make this fic what it is now.
> 
> Thank you to the_muppet for organising all of this, you really have had your work cut out and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
> 
> Lastly, thanks to you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Warnings are in the tags, please do check them.

##### January, 1961

“Come on, Arthur!” she shouts, running between the trees and laughing. She stops and turns to see that Arthur’s following, faster than she expects, and she squeals and runs again. Her dress rucks up higher around her thighs as she runs and her hair flies out of its careful style, pins dropping to the ground. It’s darkening, the summer sun beginning to set, and Arthur calls out to her.

“Be careful, Morgana!”

She stops, so he slows, thinking she’s going to wait. Instead she grins, kicks off her heels, and runs off again, faster this time. Arthur abandons his suit jacket and takes off after her, laughing, following the flash of navy blue as it moves between the trees.

He emerges into a clearing, and stops. It’s cool between the trees, the leaves and the grass gilded by the setting sun. She’s standing there, nearly in the centre of the clearing but not quite. The exact centre of the clearing is taken up by an old fountain; cracked marble, ivy-covered, and the pipe long dry. They’ve been here before.

Morgana smiles at him from the fountain, sitting down on it, gingerly. Her stockings are ripped and laddered, her hair a messy tangle that falls down to her shoulders, near black and shining, a little, in the light. The place is beautiful and, he realises, so is she.

“Look what I’ve found, Arthur.”

They used to play there as children but, try as he might, Arthur could never find it again. He walks over, slowly, trails his fingers over long-damaged marble.

“I wonder if it’s still there,” he says.

Morgana gets up, as if on cue. She steps aside, allowing Arthur to lift a small, cracked piece of stone. From the gap, he pulls out a small wooden horse they’d hidden here, all those years ago, for safekeeping. He rests it on the palm of his hand and holds it out, reverent.

“It’s still here,” he says, and he looks up at Morgana. She’s smiling still, softer now.

She reaches out, carefully, to cover his hand with her own. And then she leans in, and she kisses him. Soft and careful, lips gentle against his.

And he kisses back.

\---

Morgana had entered Arthur’s life when he was seven and she nine. There had been little explanation from his father. Just someone else to share his meagre love with. He had ignored her when he could, sulked when he couldn’t. When no one would notice his absence, he’d take off to the woods with his toys and he’d play on his own, where he could pretend that no one else was there to ruin things for him.

It was about a week after she first arrived that Morgana went to find him there. She followed him into the woods, quiet, so he wouldn’t notice. She’d just wanted to see where he went. But after watching him from the shadows for a while she knew she had to do something.

“Arthur,” she called, walking towards him. Her hands were up where he could see them, like they did in films, a signal that both children could understand.

“What do you want?” he asked, gathering his toys in close to him like he thought she wanted to hurt them.

“I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here,” she told him, bottom lip beginning to tremble in the way Arthur had seen it do in front of his Father. It wouldn’t work on him, he told himself.

“I want to be back home,” she continued, “I want my father back, I don’t want him to be gone!”

She burst into tears at that, and Arthur watched her for a few sobs before conceding that maybe they were real tears. He went over, touched her shoulder.

“It’ll be alright,” he told her.

They made a promise, then, that even if they didn’t like each other they’d look after each other. They swore on Arthur’s toy horse and on Morgana’s shoe that they’d try to be something like friends, because they needed each other. Arthur put his horse under a loose stone in the fountain. Morgana couldn’t keep her shoe there with it; she needed it. But it was understood that with the horse was buried the promise.

And they kept to it, with the fervour and loyalty that young children have.

\---

They lie on the grass, Morgana’s head on Arthur’s shoulder, his arms soft around her. They stare up into the darkening sky together, chilled by the wind. Arthur presses a soft kiss to the top of her head and she turns over, burying her head in his chest, trying to get closer.

“You know, I never say it because we don’t do the whole expressing emotions to each other thing, but I do love you, Arthur.”

“Morgana, you don’t need to-”

She cuts him off by rolling onto her front and pressing two fingers to his lips.

“If we’re going to be more than just friends, Arthur, I don’t want to leave things unresolved between us. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, after my father died. With Morgause. With everything.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do when you found out you had a half sister-”

This time she cuts him off with a glare.

“I mean it, Arthur. I don’t say it enough. Thank you.”

“Well, thank you too then, I suppose.”

Morgana settles on his chest again, playing with the buttons of his shirt. The wind sighs in the trees around them, and the light continues to fade from the sky.

“Father will be happy,” Arthur says, abrupt, loud against the darkness.

“What do you mean?” Morgana asks, her hands stilling.

“He’s always wanted you in the family properly.”

Morgana laughs. Where her voice and her words are entirely proper her laugh is not, wild and unpredictable. Arthur runs his fingers through her hair.

“Are you cold yet?” he asks.

“Getting that way. You’re warm. I don’t envy you, lying on the cold ground.”

“Oh, thanks!” Arthur pokes her, affronted. Tickles her until she rolls away, then stands up.

“Come on,” he says, “Before the light fades and we can’t find your shoes. And before Father starts worrying.”

\---

They get back to the party late, and have to change. Uther shouts at them, of course, but that was only to be expected.

His rage abates a few hours later as he watches them flit from dinner guest to dinner guest, pacifying Lord Olaf about the whereabouts of his daughter, removing any alcohol from the path of the already inebriated Lady Annis. Dancing close together to a slow song, every part the family he always wanted them to be.

They stay up late with champagne and strawberries long after the guests have left and Uther has gone to bed. Lounging on a settee, feeding each other, Arthur’s arm around Morgana’s shoulders, Morgana’s palm resting over his heart.

They go to bed when Morgana has to poke her long fingernails into Arthur’s side to keep him awake, each to their separate rooms, parting on a long, close kiss. That is, until Morgana tiptoes across the hall to Arthur’s room. Her hair is brushed smooth, reaching down almost to her waist. She’s wearing a nightdress that stops at her knees, and Arthur watches her from his bed, watches her as she catches the chinks of moonlight that have escaped through the curtain. She makes him catch his breath. When he sits up to let her know he’s seen her, half of his face falls into light, the other in shadow.

Morgana’s always known that Arthur is handsome. It takes moments like this for her to remember it, though.

She crosses over to him, wordlessly, and he lifts the covers for her to slip under. She crawls over to him and kisses him, softly, the slightest hint of her tongue on his, before pulling back.

They don’t do anything tonight. Neither of them are strangers to how pregnancies happen, and they won’t risk anything. But later they will, when Dr Gaius sneaks Morgana the newly introduced contraceptive pill intended only for married women. Later they’ll hold each other close and gasp into the sheets and hide everything from Uther because _wouldn’t it make such a wonderful surprise for him._

But for now, Arthur pulls Morgana close into him, and she undoes the top few buttons of his flannel pyjama shirt to press her palm against the warm skin of his chest, to feel his pulse, to feel him there with her. Because now neither of them have to be alone any longer.

\---

##### April 1961

“Arthur,” Morgana calls from the doorway, “Do you have a moment?”

They’re sitting at the breakfast table, him and Uther, spreading strawberry jam with bits in over slices of toast, cracking boiled eggs, smoking the first cigarette of the day. Their heads turn in unison to look at her, soft and perfect with her silk dressing gown trailing over the floor, her hair still rumpled from bed. Arthur catches the worry in her voice, but his sleep-fogged mind thinks little of it. He barely recognises the significance of Morgana wanting to talk away from Uther, either. If he noticed it at all, he’d attribute it to Uther’s upcoming birthday celebrations, or something like that.

He leaves his breakfast and follows her out of the room, letting her take his hand and lead him upstairs. It’s then that he knows something is truly wrong; her grip is too tight by far, holding onto him like it’s the only thing keeping her upright.

She walks him into her room, sits him down on her bed. Lets go of him and starts pacing from her dressing table to her wardrobe and back again. He watches her and waits for her to be ready.

“There’s a chance I might be pregnant.”

Arthur watches her, still and silent, shocked.

“No, you can’t be, Gaius gave you-”

“Gaius is the one who told me!” she snaps, stilling and rounding on him. His face must evidence some shock, because she sighs and quietens.

“I’m sorry, Arthur. I just don’t know what to do. And I don’t even know if it’s a problem or not.”

He holds his arms out for her, and she goes, settling on the bed next to him, head on his shoulder.

“Tell me what Gaius said.”

Morgana sighs, settles a little closer, and begins.

“The pill he gave me is already in use in America, but when they brought it over here they were worried about the size of the dosage and they reduced it. It would seem it’s not enough to prevent pregnancy.”

Arthur rubs circles over her back, comforting, while she breathes. She’s on the verge of tears; he can hear it in the hitching of her breath, and he helps her calm down before she continues.

“I’ve been missing my periods. Neither I nor Gaius knows if that’s because of the pill, or because I’m pregnant. He’ll run a test, but we won’t know for a few days.”

Morgana pulls away a little, to look into his face, to try to find reassurance there.

“Arthur, I’m scared.”

“It’ll be alright,” he tells her. “We’ll get married. I love you, ‘Gana, and I suppose I always knew it would end up like this. We’ll get married, and we’ll have the baby if there is one, and there’ll be so little scandal you wouldn’t believe. I’ll fix it for you. I promised you we’d stick together, didn’t I?”

She kisses him, lips hard and grateful against his, arms wrapped tight around his shoulders, the breadth of them reassuring, a barrier against the world to hold her.

“When will we tell Uther?”

Arthur smiles, tilting his head so their foreheads are pressed together.

“Let me do this properly. Get you a ring. And then we’ll tell him.”

“On his birthday?”

“He’ll love it,” Arthur tells her, with a smile and another kiss.

\---

They look beautiful together, Uther thinks, as they walk together towards where he sits in the bandstand, hand in hand, his children. His Arthur, and his Morgana, light and dark and both so happy, so clever and inventive and authoritative. Everything he wanted of them, for them.

They stand in front of him, matching smiles across their faces. Uther and Arthur’s tuxedos are near identical. Morgana’s dress is a deep red with a wide skirt, reaching to the floor. The ring, white gold and a deep blue sapphire, is hidden by their clasped hands.

“There’s something we have to tell you, Father,” Arthur says, watching his face for reaction. So far, there is none.

Morgana looks between them, and Arthur inclines his head to her. He knows she wants to tell Uther, knows she’s far too excited about the whole situation; the wedding, the flowers and the guests and the end of the secrecy, but especially the baby. Her smile widens, and she squeezes Arthur’s hand before turning to Uther.

“Arthur and I are getting married,” she says.

Uther’s face is unmoving for a moment, then his eyes widen, and his forehead furrows, and he pales. Anger crosses his face in harsh frostbite, iron-hard with cold.

“You can’t,” he says, voice lower than usual, quiet.

“Why not?” Morgana asks, tensing. Arthur can feel it through his hand, and he strokes his thumb over her skin, slow, careful.

“You _will_ not,” Uther tells them, standing.

“Then we’ll run away! We’re in love, Uther!”

He raises his arm, a harsh line of disapproval, as he points towards them both.

“I forbid it.”

Arthur steps in front of Morgana, holding her hand tight behind his back.

“Father, please, what objection do you have?”

Uther looks at them both, lowering his hand slowly. He narrows his eyes, and they wait. Arthur breathes slowly, scared even to disturb the air around his Father. Behind him Morgana is frantic, chest heaving irregularly, shaking a little in fear and anger and disbelief. Arthur waits for Uther to speak; after all there’s nothing else to do.

Uther’s voice is low, and he rubs his hand over his forehead.

“You’re brother and sister. You can’t get married.”

“I know you’ve always brought us up as siblings, Father, but we’re not really-”

“Yes, you _are_.” He raises his voice, and Arthur is silenced.

“Before I met your mother, Morgana’s mother and I had a brief affair. We didn’t love each other; we were both alone. Gorlois was always away, and it was clear when she got pregnant that the child was not his, but he brought you up as his own, Morgana. So when he died, I took over, and did my job as a father.”

“And you never thought to tell me?” Morgana’s voice is shrill, and Arthur knows the warning signs, so he turns, takes hold of her forearms, and presses in close, calming. When her breathing slows again, he turns back to Uther.

“Father, Morgana is pregnant. Dr Gaius had prescribed her a pill, but it didn’t work.”

Uther looks at them, thunderous, and for a moment Arthur thinks he’ll strike them both. But, for once, he contains himself.

“Out,” he hisses, “Get to your rooms, both of you, and do not leave them until I’ve fixed this mess you’ve made.”

They go, Morgana tripping in her heels, hands still held as they jog past the rose-beds and back into the house. Tears stream silent down Morgana’s face, and Arthur wipes them off, careful.

“It’ll be alright, ‘Gana,” he says, “I won’t let you hurt.”

\---

Uther locks Morgana up in the house. Puts it about that she’s terribly ill.

And she is. Arthur stands in her doorway, afraid to get too close in case he breaks her, or in case Uther sees them and separates them. He watches her grow pale and sallow, watches her skin sink between her cheekbones, watches her hair and her eyes dull as her stomach grows. He hears her retching in the morning, unable to keep anything down for long. Dr Gaius is far from an obstetrician but he’s the only doctor Uther will trust both to take care of Morgana and to keep the pregnancy secret. Still, Morgana worsens, and there’s nothing Arthur can do to help. He’s barely allowed to see her, after all.

After eight months has passed, Morgana is packed off to her sister Morgause’s house with a large cheque and Dr Gaius in tow. He will deliver the baby, because medicine has failed Uther before but Gaius never has, and he will take good care of them both. Arthur is sent up to Oxford to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics like his father before him. He is not given leave to visit Morgana, not even to set eyes on his son. Morgana is not allowed to write, and perhaps it’s best. Perhaps they’ll love each other a little less while they don’t see each other.

After the baby is born – a boy, who Morgana names Mordred, as Arthur only finds out after threatening to reveal the baby’s existence if he cannot know the name and whereabouts of his own child – is left with Morgause and her husband, and they are moved, packed off to another house where Morgana and Arthur cannot find them. Morgana is forbidden to see her sister again, and given work as a secretary in the hope that hard work will help her forget Arthur. Arthur realises that his father hopes that University will somehow teach him out of love, which is a little absurd. Except that he finds that without Morgana there, it does start to ebb. And, with the knowledge that they are related, it starts to change. He wishes he could be allowed to see her, but not to elope together. Because in a way she’s always been like an older sister to him and he misses that. He misses having her around, has so much he wants to tell her about nights in the pub and plays and rugby games and the friends he makes.

Morgana misses Arthur, too. But, with every hammer of the typewriter keys as she has letter after letter dictated to her, her love for him and her overwhelming love for her child, shut away with her sister where she cannot go to either of them, and her all-encompassing loneliness churn and metamorphose into something ugly, sharp, dark and bitter. She fumes with every breath; outwardly a show of obedience, inwardly wanting to drive a heel through the stomach of the next man who looks at her breasts before addressing her. She plots ways to humiliate Uther as part of her daily routine, yet never carries them through. So it festers like a sore, day by day.

\---

The office bustles, filled with the sound of voices and typewriters. Arthur knew it would be like this. God knows, they’ve told him enough. He just wishes he’d had the imagination to realise quite how bad it would be.

He stands in the doorway, waiting for the place to calm down, clutching his briefcase in one hand. As the new Assistant Director he should already be installed in his office and being brought up to speed. But he doesn’t actually know where it is, and Uther has been called away unexpectedly, to the factory up in Newcastle because something or other has sheared away from something else and it’s ruined about seventeen bonnets – or at least that’s what Arthur thinks he said over the phone this morning.

Through the open doors of the office he can see Morgana sitting at her desk, fingers flying over the typewriter, barely even looking up to hit the carriage return. He itches to go to her, to look at her properly, see how she’s doing. They’ve barely seen each other in the past few years; Uther keeps them both busy when Arthur’s been at home for the holidays. Even now he’s graduated, Uther makes sure to keep them separate at home. But he can’t prevent Arthur talking to her at work, so he will, given half a chance.

He watches Morgana pull the paper from the typewriter, fold it and slide it neatly into an envelope. His chest tightens a little with nerves to see that she gets up and walks out of the little secretaries’ office she shares with another girl, heels clicking on the polished wooden floor, heading directly towards him.

She turns a few metres away to place the envelope on a young man’s desk. He has dark hair that almost matches Morgana’s, but both it and his attire are messy already. Arthur knows he must be exemplary at his job for Uther to keep someone that unkempt on the premises.

Morgana shares a smile with the man as he takes the envelope and gets up to leave, and Arthur catches the mischievous glint to her eyes that he’s missed so much before she turns to get back to work. Arthur starts at the realisation that she hasn’t seen him.

“Morgana!” He calls out, and she turns on her heel.

“Arthur!” she says, mouth turning up at the corners. She restrains herself, schools her smile, walks over slowly.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting to see your office.”

“It’s alright,” he tells her, taking her arm by her elbow and squeezing a little, missing entirely her slight flinch, “Father’s not here.”

Her smile grows at that, and she takes his hand.

“Come on, this way.”

She leads him through the office to the opposite side of the building, and a wooden door with a glass window and a brass doorknob. It stands in a line of similar doors, and there’s something about each of them that screams importance. It’s intimidating, that he’ll soon be working behind these doors. A little sickening, perhaps, that he’ll have all that power; all that control.

Morgana grins at him and opens the door.

“We’re going to get your name painted on the glass.”

“Great,” Arthur says, smile more like a grimace. Morgana looks at him in sympathy and pushes him into the office.

“Come on, we’ll have a proper chat, I want to know about University without Uther breathing down our necks.”

He sits for the first time in the cold leather chair behind his desk, and he taps his pen against the in-tray. It’s a little bit easier to sit there, a mirror image of where Uther usually sits, with a familiar face opposite him and the memories of friends and times he’s felt safe and protected; shielded.

He tells her of the time they got drunk and threw paint at the porter’s office, the time they jumped off Magdalene Bridge, the initiation to the rowing team. Everything of importance. She smiles and tells him about how boring it’s been without him, the exceptions to that being a couple of people from work; Gwen, another secretary, and Merlin, a talented new designer who will spend afternoons with the two of them, waiting to be seen. She tells him how they manage, sometimes, to sneak her out from under Uther’s watchful eyes to go to dance, where she can be young and carefree and forget she was once in love with her younger brother and has a child, somewhere out there, who she’s not allowed to see.

Arthur holds her hand and squeezes it.

“You’re not still in love with me, then?” he asks, cautious.

“No, Arthur,” she says with a smile, “That’s all over, thankfully.”

He smiles at her, relieved. She returns the look, but their moment of complete isolation from the world is gone. They’ve let in thoughts of their past, and it cannot be ignored. It’s only a matter of time before Arthur asks.

“So what of our son? Has Father told you anything of him?”

“Only that he is well,” Morgana says, looking down at her manicured fingernails on the edge of the desk, “Uther won’t let me visit. He won’t even give me a photograph.”

Arthur nods, disappointed. His child isn’t a subject he thinks on often, but it’s always there, preying on him. He would like to see Mordred’s face, he realises. Would like to see just what sort of a child he and Morgana made. If he suffers for their mistakes – he knows that the children of siblings can be malformed or ill. He wants to provide for his child, be responsible for his own son’s wellbeing. Make sure that he is brought up knowing his father and mother, make sure he is denied nothing he needs. But that is not the path chosen for him.

“I’ll try to get more,” he tells Morgana, determined, “I need to know how he is.”

Morgana’s eyes flit up to him and she smiles, and he remembers again just why he loved her. Doesn’t get as far as doing so again, though.

“Well, now you’re here, I suppose you’ll want to meet the others. I assume Uther’s had you studying the business harder than you studied anything at University.”

Arthur laughs, sudden.

“Oh, you have no idea.”

“Come on,” she says, “Come and meet them all. Merlin will be gone by now, he was the one I was talking to earlier, but you’ll meet him soon enough.”

She stands up, and she takes Arthur’s hand and tugs him out of the office.

“This is Gwen,” she tells him, leading him to the secretaries’ desk, “Gwen, this is Arthur, but we’ll all have to refer to him as Mr Pendragon.”

Gwen smiles and nods, taking a brown corkscrew curl around her finger and tightening it.

“Hello Arthur- that is Mr Pendragon- or should I-”

“And Gwen is Miss Smith,” Morgana interrupts.

“Miss Smith,” he says, with a nod of the head. Gwen blushes.

Arthur watches her for a moment longer than he should, a little amazed that his father employed a black woman. But her voice has an almost cultured edge to it, and he supposes that’s what matters to Uther. Not colour, but class, or at least the appearance of it. Gwen is pretending to be middle class if she isn’t actually, and if it is an act she’s doing well.

Morgana totters off to another room and holds onto the doorframe, swinging in.

“Gwaine! You and Lancelot, postpone your meeting, come and meet Arthur.”

She straightens out her dress as she comes back, smile wide across her face. Arthur can almost believe her happy then, a vision in cream and black, looking every bit the part of a film star. She trails two men behind her, and Arthur could almost envision them on leads.

“Mr Arthur Pendragon, this is Mr Gwaine May, and Mr Lancelot DuLac.”

They all nod to each other, and look each other up and down. Lancelot is dressed smartly, his dark suit and tie immaculate. His hair is swept back neatly, and he exudes a feeling of goodness. Arthur can almost see it coming off him in waves. Next to him Gwaine looks a complete contrast. He isn’t wearing a tie, the top two buttons of his shirt undone. His suit is black, but with a strong chequered pattern. He shakes long hair out of his face and gives Arthur a half smile.

“How on earth did you convince my father to hire you, Mr May?” Arthur asks. Gwaine throws his head back and laughs.

“It’s a bit of a mystery to me too, to be honest, Princess Pendragon. And it’s Gwaine, none of this titles business.”

Arthur tenses a little at the name calling. Seeing it, Morgana shoots Gwaine a dark look, and it’s that that makes Arthur retaliate, really. He can look after himself.

“No titles, May Queen? But I’d love to see ribbons in that pretty hair.”

“I bet you would,” Gwaine says, with a wink, “Want me to be your May Queen, huh-”

Lancelot’s hand shoots out, grabbing onto Gwaine’s arm. He moves with a lightning speed, and Arthur is impressed.

“That’s enough, Gwaine.”

Gwaine’s mouth shuts immediately. He grins at Arthur, but it’s less of a challenge now.

“Gwaine is our Head of Sales, Arthur, so he’s not often in the office. Lancelot is Head of Human Resources.”

“Good to meet you both,” Arthur says, sincere. There’s something about the pair of them, and if Morgana likes them enough to introduce them straight away, well, his opinion probably isn’t unfounded.

“So,” Gwaine says, ignoring the tightening grip of Lancelot’s hand on his arm, “Did his Lordship bring you here to save the company, then?”

\---

As soon as Arthur knew how to make a cup of tea, as soon as he could be trusted to be serious enough to help out with the filing, Arthur has spent a proportion of his summer at one of Uther’s companies. It was all to give him experience, or so Uther said, because _one day all this will be yours_. But really, all Arthur did was get underfoot. For the first few years all he could really do was file and watch. And after that, when he did understand what was going on, no one wanted to hear from a teenage boy. No one thought him capable of help.

Arthur was sixteen when he discovered the Financial Director of Legal Knights embezzling thousands of pounds from the company. He’d been sitting at a spare intern’s desk for the past week, going over the accounts for a lack of anything else to do. But there had been discrepancies. Only small at first, but Arthur had made sure to note each one down. It had built over the months, until large payments from orders had begun to go missing entirely. There was a week where nothing went missing at all. Arthur cross referenced it with the employee schedule and sure enough, the one person with access to remove the funds who was away at the time was the Financial Director.

He presented the evidence to Uther in his office one evening, when he had enough evidence. Uther was too angry at the time to thank his son. He had sent Arthur away to deal with the man. Arthur supposed he didn’t need any thanks. After all, he had saved a company he would one day own. It was in his own benefit.

That didn’t stop the disappointment, though.

\---

Leon has been Arthur’s friend since the first week of University, when they found out they were in the same college, studying the same course. They’d set out to do everything together, and in between tutorials and drinking as much beer as they could down the pub and wrestling for some sort of drunken bet on the quad they realised that actually, they quite liked each other.

And then it became more about them wanting to get drunk and study together, rather than convenience, and protecting each other from broken hearts and fights in the pub. Usually about Sophia, the gorgeous but bitchy girl who worked in the bar and wasn’t in the slightest bit attractive until you’d had five pints, when the boys would decide they loved her, and she’d set them one against the other. Leon and Arthur bonded in the pub, holding each other back from the other guy, and in the gym, fencing and boxing and training for those pub fights, determined not to lose the next one and never really comprehending that they could stop.

So it’s fitting that it’s in the nearest pub that they meet for the first time in months. Leon has a job in civil service, and he’s highly tipped to do well. But right now he’s tired and stressed, and Arthur doesn’t even have to ask to know how he’s doing. Instead, he gets two pints from the bar, and sets one down in front of Leon.

“How’s the new job?” Leon asks.

Arthur looks at him, and sighs. He slides into his chair and lets himself slump for the first time in a week, shoulders loosening. He takes off his tie and jacket and rolls up his shirt-sleeves, runs a hand through his hair, until he looks so rumpled his father would probably disown him.

“The company’s failing.”

“What?” Leon asks, face paling yet further, “But it’s Uther Pendragon, he’s a business god, his companies never fail!”

Arthur gives Leon a long hard look. He’s tired, and he’s worried and a little bit afraid, and somewhere in the back of his mind sits the knowledge that Mordred’s out there, tiny and fragile and lost to him, worrying him like a sore, wearing him down.

“Well, it’s happening. The accounts say it all, we’re just not getting any orders.”

They both take a sip of their beers, and Arthur sighs again.

“And Father will expect me to fix it all.”

Leon nods, colour coming back to him a little as he takes another sip of his beer.

“You can manage it, Arthur.”

“Maybe.” He says it with the air of a conversation over, toneless and dead.

They drink in silence for a while, and Arthur is calmed a little by the familiarity of it.

“So. Any girls with typewriters I should know about?”

“Well, one of them’s Morgana, so no.”

Leon laughs a little, and gives Arthur a sidelong look.

“And the other one?”

“She’s nice. She likes me, I think; she got flustered and that’s usually a good sign, right?”

“And do you like her back?” Leon prompts, nudging at Arthur with his elbow.

“Father would hate me marrying her.”

“That doesn’t mean anything either way, Arthur.”

Arthur smiles a little, because he doesn’t know either way. He should like her, but he doesn’t know if he does, and that’s alright for now. It’s not the biggest of his problems, and it’s nice to forget again that he has more to deal with than the average person. It’s reassuring, in a way, and Leon looks at him like he’s a little bit insane, but he’s happy with that. He’s happy here.

\---

“Father, can I have a word? It’s about Mordred.”

Uther looks up slowly, scowling.

“I think you know the answer to that question, Arthur.”

“Of course.” Arthur turns to leave, disappointed and hurt, though he knew exactly what to expect.

“Arthur. Do not mention that name to me again.”

\---

Arthur gets to the office early. It’s what’s expected of him. Security lets him into the building and he goes over his work from the night before.

He gets caught up in it, in the routine, immersed in balance sheets and letters from the factories, so much so that he doesn’t notice the rest of the office coming in to work. He doesn’t even realise he’s not alone until Morgana walks into his office, unannounced, and leans on his desk.

“Merlin’s in.”

Arthur makes a point of finishing what he’s reading and filing it away before deigning to respond.

“And Merlin is…?”

Morgana leans in conspiratorially, and Arthur can’t help but let himself smile.

“He’s the best designer the company’s ever had. Wasted here, utterly wasted. I did tell you about him, remember?”

Arthur pulls back just enough that she’ll be able to see him narrowing his eyes at her. Morgana doesn’t do praise that sincere. Not unless there’s something going on.

She recognises what Arthur’s eyes are alluding to, so she slaps him, just lightly on the arm.

“No. Just no. There is nothing going on with me and Merlin.”

“But you want there to be?”

She hits him again, a little harder, sitting on the desk to reach.

“No, Arthur! A man and a woman can just be friends without anything happening!”

Arthur smiles, raising an eyebrow suggestively. Morgana squeals, launching herself across the table to find, to her intense joy, that University hasn’t deprived Arthur of his sensitivity to tickling.

There’s a sound that could almost be a knocking on the door, but Arthur pays it no heed, too busy trying to pin Morgana’s wrists away from his sides. So Arthur’s unscheduled nine o’clock meeting, the tall, slim man from Morgana and the envelope on Arthur’s first day, walks in to the sight of flailing heels, tangled limbs and loose hair.

“I could just go out and come back in again?”

Arthur pushes Morgana off him hastily.

“No, no, Mr, er-”

“Emrys, Arthur, this is Merlin Emrys.”

“Mr Emrys, Morgana was just leaving.”

He pushes Morgana away with a hand in the small of her back. She somehow manages to keep upright while fixing her hair and compensating for the force. It makes Arthur think of another time Morgana was in heels and managing not to fall over, only the sun was setting, and there were roots-

He forces himself to focus on the man in front of him. Living in the past is pointless, and it won’t serve to undo what he and Morgana did.

Merlin is watching him a little strangely. Arthur clears his throat and looks down, straightening his tie.

“We grew up together, you see,” Arthur says, as if it explains everything.

“I see,” Merlin says, very much as if it explains nothing.

“What can I do for you, Mr Emrys?” Arthur asks, pushing the last few minutes to the back of his mind, like they can be erased if he just wishes hard enough for it to happen. He’s supposed to be in charge. He’s supposed to have authority.

“Your father asked me to show you the next stage of my designs.”

He takes the seat opposite Arthur’s and pushes a file over the table to Arthur. It’s oriented to face Merlin, so Arthur has to turn it around. He notices these things. It gives a bad impression, like the coffee stain on Merlin’s lapel and his method of knotting a tie, which could be called haphazard at best. Making a mental note to forbid him ever presenting to anyone outside the company, Arthur opens the file, and the images that meet him thoroughly underwhelm him.

“They look almost exactly the same as the previous models.”

“Exactly!” Merlin says, and his face lights up a little.

“Now,” Arthur says, giving Merlin a look perfected in seminars throughout the years, conveying exactly the right level of I-think-I-may-have-just-encountered-an-imbecile, “I may not be a designer, but surely that’s a bad thing.”

“You see,” Merlin says, smile twisting into something a little deranged, “I would have thought so too, but your father begs to differ.”

Arthur fixes his expression into neutrality. It’s that or hide under the desk, because understandably, Merlin seems to have been driven clinically insane by Uther Pendragon.

“Morgana said you were the best,” he tells Merlin through gritted teeth.

“That might be on account of these.”

Merlin hands him a file, upside down again, and Arthur fights the urge to go around the table and hit him with the file for his lack of presentation and his bringing Arthur issues with his father that aren’t even his and he really doesn’t need.

But instead, Arthur opens the file. The cars Merlin has drawn are possibly the most beautiful Arthur has ever seen, with the obvious exception of Aston Martins. They range from exclusive sports cars to estates that somehow maintain the same feeling of freedom.

“These are…”

He falls silent, failing to find a word that adequately describes what he thinks of the drawings.

Merlin looks at him, a little unsure, a little vulnerable, and Arthur is struck by a sudden need to catalogue him like he would an object or a piece of data, to compare the colour of his eyes and his lips and his hair to the swatches of paint colours they provide customers. Instead, he decides to validate him.

“Well, I can see why Morgana has such a high opinion of you.”

Merlin’s face breaks into a smile, and it’s a little bit blinding, the corners of his eyes crinkling. The little bit of hair that falls in front of his ears has a curl to it, and when he takes his files back from Arthur his fingers are long and thin and lithe. Arthur doesn’t know why he notices these things, but he does.

“So, will you be, erm, patronising my designs?”

Arthur doesn’t answer immediately. Merlin’s face falls a little, slowly at first, then it plummets from worry to hurt.

“They would certainly improve sales,” Arthur tells him, “But my father-”

“Understood.”

Merlin gets up to leave, but though he’s said he understands Arthur can tell he’s still deeply disappointed.

“It’s his first company. He likes having a hold over it. He doesn’t like it changing.”

“I should move company,” Merlin says, quietly.

“No!” Arthur says, and he’s not sure why he says it. Other than the good of the company, of course, because Merlin’s designs are just about perfect.

“The company’s about to collapse. We need you. Father- Father will just have to work out his priorities.”

Merlin turns in the doorway, and he all but grins at Arthur.

“I knew there was a reason why I stayed,” he says.

Arthur doesn’t know what to think about that, so he watches Merlin leave. And he resolves to schedule a meeting with his father. He needs to at least try.

\---

Gwaine and Lancelot invite Arthur to the pub on Friday night. It’s ostensibly an office outing, but most of the office have homes to go to, or, as Gwaine says, are boring sods who wouldn’t know fun if it slapped them in the face. Morgana knows she’s expected home immediately after work, and Gwen wouldn’t want to be the only girl, besides, there’s her father’s dinner to think about. So it ends up just the three of them tucked into a corner around newspaper-wrapped fish and chips, the stench of cigarette smoke ingrained into the upholstery and yellowing the cream walls, stale and sickening as it mixes with the grease from the chips, and a pint each in uniform dark brown and perfect rings on the sticky table.

To Arthur, it’s perfect.

He’s missed greasy food, stuck with his father’s too-perfect cook. He’s missed the noise of people talking, how it makes him feel part of something even if he isn’t alone, and he’s missed alcohol that doesn’t burn the back of his throat when it goes down, that makes him feel calm and loose-tongued instead of angry.

“So, you two don’t have homes to go to?” he says, eating chips and flakes of fish with the little wooden forks they give you.

“Lance actually does,” Gwaine says, thumbing at him, “She’s called Elaine, and there’s a baby.”

They’ve known each other for three weeks and that piece of information hadn’t come up yet. Arthur stares at Lancelot in confusion.

Lance just picks up a chip and eats it.

“It’s a long story,” Gwaine says.

Arthur takes that as it is and eats some more.

By the end of the night Arthur’s not entirely sure what they’ve talked about, only that it’s been nice, and that they’ve probably had far too much to drink. He’s lost count, but he’s sure he’s got two rounds in himself, so that probably means they’ve each had five, maybe six pints. The room’s swimming almost reassuringly, and next to him Gwaine is leaning close to Lancelot, hand firmly placed on his thigh. He’s whispering something into Lance’s ear, lips dangerously close to his skin, and Arthur can’t help but watch them. Their edges are blurred with the smoke in the air and Arthur can’t work out what they’re saying.

Something about their interaction feels strange, feels different, but he can’t place it. There’s been too much beer, and he’ll forget about it entirely in the morning, lost in the haze of friends and fun and the hangover he’ll spend Saturday nursing. Still, he’s not disgusted, nor is he jealous. Just intrigued.

Lance turns an interesting shade of red, and that’s it. He gets up, pulling Gwaine with him.

“Well, I’d better get you home safe,” he says, though he’s slurring just as much as Gwaine. Something tells Arthur that nothing could take Lance’s responsibility from him. He’d probably die helping someone else.

They leave together, in two separate taxis, in two separate directions.

Arthur’s cab pulls up in front of the Pendragon estate, and he pays the driver, crunching through the gravel and trying not to make too much noise as he opens the door. His father’s bedroom is above the entrance and, while he cannot actually object to Arthur spending time with friends, he can glare his disapproval, and he can make life hard for Arthur if he wakes him up.

He’s so busy being quiet that he entirely fails to notice Morgana waiting for him on the stairs, leaning on the banister in her lilac dressing gown, until she’s right there, tapping her fingers on the banister.

“So. Tonight.”

Arthur narrows his eyes at her.

“How are you so awake?”

“Because there are things I want to ask you!”

“Like what, Morgana?”

“What happened? What was it like? What was the pub like? Did anything strange happen?”

Arthur peers at her, then walks up the stairs, turns her by the shoulders, and leads her up to her bedroom.

“Alright, I am getting you out of this house. I think you might be going insane.”

\---

The thing is, Arthur is stuck in a rut, and everything comes back to his father. His father controls both his and Morgana’s finances, jointly with them. So he has no way of getting Morgana out from under his roof, unless Uther decides he wants her married off and flings her into society, because he will never sanction anything else. That had always been the eventual plan, but since his father has shown no sign of deciding to break Morgana’s secretarial punishment it seems that her life will be on hold for the time being.

It’s Uther’s web-like control over their lives that means equally that Arthur cannot trace Mordred. The money to pay for a private detective would be considerable, and a man as thorough as his father would never let that slip through his net. There would be questions, formal inquiries, _Arthur have you got some girl pregnant again, are you paying someone off_ , the worst assumed first. He needs help, but he doesn’t know who to ask. Leon, perhaps, but he’s so new to his job that Arthur couldn’t let him risk all his promise, not for a child he doesn’t even know exists because Arthur doesn’t talk about it, mortified and yet somehow unashamed about what he and Morgana did. So, although he needs to know his son, needs to find him and just know that he’s alright, he can’t just yet.

And there’s the company to worry about, too. Because if Arthur is at the helm when it goes down, he knows he’ll be the one to get the blame. And he could save it. There’s Merlin and his designs, and there’s the new market targeting and company image just on the brink of coalescing into a viable plan in Arthur’s mind. And yet, he’s not in total control. Every decision on the direction of the company has to be agreed on by Uther. So in practice, there’s nothing Arthur can change. And it’s change they need, if they’re to survive.

It’s not only that, though. It’s the weight of expectation. Uther’s love is firmly tied down to approval. If Arthur does something wrong he is sure he will lose them both, and he so desperately wants his father to love him, to be proud of him.

It’s others, too. The way the people that make up Albion Motors expect him to save the company. It’s the way society seems to want him to marry some girl and then have a child, not forego the whole marriage thing altogether. Arthur feels he’s being pulled so many ways he might tear.

\---

It was Christmas day, not many years after Uther had taken Morgana in, that he caved into their pestering to buy a television. It was a beautiful thing, they both thought; smaller than the cinema but somehow better, because it was theirs. They watched the usual Christmas fare; speeches and carols and then, unexpected, a film.

Arthur fell in love with it instantly. Not just one character, like Morgana seemed to with the handsome male lead. It was the whole idea that captivated Arthur; the way the children had a mother and a father who they belonged to, and who belonged together. It was the air of warmth and love and happiness that perpetuated the film, even through the snow. Arthur wrapped his blanket closer around himself and rolled onto his front and swung his legs and he wished with everything he had that his family would feel like that next Christmas. Rather than the arguments between him and Morgana when Uther’s back was turned about who got the best presents, the most love. Rather than Uther’s awkward coldness as he wished them both a Merry Christmas. Arthur stared wide eyed at the screen and tried to take as much of it in as possible, colouring the black and white images in his mind. The blonde lady was his mother, and she would come in with a Christmas pudding and a kiss for them all. She’d hug his father until he defrosted. He knew it could never happen, but it was a nice dream.

When the film ended Arthur’s eyes stayed fixed to the glass of the screen, for fear that if he looked away he would lose the memory. Even the tiniest of details were precious.

\---

He meets with Merlin again. This time, around the conference table, Merlin’s designs spread out between them like a bridge. Together, they shuffle through them, Arthur’s eye appreciative and critical in equal measure.

Their hands brush, reaching for the same sheet of paper. Arthur coughs. Merlin draws back, folding in on himself, concertina-like, even his eyes shutting down. Arthur feels the loss almost like a chill in the air.

“We need to keep the proposal simple,” he says, an attempt to re-engage Merlin’s enthusiasm so obvious that he’s sure Merlin will call him out on it.

He doesn’t, though. Simply looks over at Arthur and nods as if Arthur’s word is gospel.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Well, I-”

He takes a few of the images and lines them up next to each other to illustrate his point.

“I think the idea of consistency in design between models is a great selling point, and I like how everything looks so beautifully made, almost nostalgic, but I think we can play on that a little more…”

Arthur pulls in another few images, with backgrounds of country lanes, cottages falling into disrepair.

“Draw the cars in exactly the same position, on similar backgrounds. And keep them like these, crafted, not made. But play on the similarity as much as you can, make it completely clear that these are the same make of car.”

Merlin turns over a piece of paper, snatches Arthur’s fountain pen, and drawing with it will ruin it – he opens his mouth to say as much – but it doesn’t seem to matter when Merlin’s mouth falls a little open in concentration and his eyes all but sparkle with inspiration and his fingers move, deft and graceful, across the page. The lines he creates are sometimes sharp, sometimes sinuous, and Arthur can’t help but look over at him, sitting three seats away, and see him in that same graphical language of angles and curves.

He pushes a drawing over to Arthur, snapping him out of his reverie and forcing him to look.

“Like that?”

“Yes,” Arthur breathes out, somehow, because he’s never seen an artist at work before, never watched someone turn a few lines into something evocative and three dimensional and emotional, and he can’t quite think through the amazement. He could watch Merlin draw for hours, pulled into it, into the flick of his wrist at the end of a curve, the way he twists the pen for a thicker line.

Arthur clears his throat again. He needs to concentrate.

“I’ll need three drawings. Three cars, a range of affordability. Something for the man with a wife and two children who needs something affordable that he can put them in the back of to take them to swimming every weekend. Something for the man of leisure, not tied down at all. And perhaps something for a couple of means? Or an older audience, you decide, whatever inspires you. Have them on my desk on Monday morning, I’ll take them into Father’s office for our lunchtime meeting and present our ideas.”

Merlin looks over at him, protesting.

“Your ideas, sir.”

“The cars are yours.”

“And I could never come up with the business plan. Perhaps he’ll listen to you. Perhaps this is what I’ve been missing.”

“Perhaps,” Arthur says, smiling, “We can only hope.”

\---

Arthur stays late that night. Drawing up planned figures, forecasts of sales, everything his father could possibly ask for.

It’s dark in his office, the blinds closed behind him, the window in his door a black rectangle. To Arthur it seems almost tar-like, the darkness thick and heavy in the window pane. He wants to draw a curtain over it, to stop it sucking him in. It’s early rather than late and he feels as if the coldness of the night at this time could leach his thoughts from him, take away what it is that makes him Arthur Pendragon…

He turns his head back to his sheets of paper, numbers dancing over them. The light on his desk tinges the pages yellow and green, the colours of its shade. It’s a hideous thing, and Arthur resolves to change it, but still. Something about the colours almost warms him. They swim in front of his eyes and he knows he needs to get some sleep, but not yet. There are thoughts going on, somewhere in his subconscious, and he knows that they are important.

Staring at the patterns of income and expenditure, orders and shipments, he finds himself thinking of Mordred.

It’s not unusual. He wants his son, wants the responsibility and the difficulty of it as long as it means that he can see his child, can know that he’s safe and being brought up well, can know that he has a future. It’s a physical need, almost, just to know, to see him. And he hates to think how Morgana must feel, having seen Mordred, held him briefly, named him even. And there’s her mother’s instinct, or whatever it is, the visceral need to keep her child close to her, though he’s been stolen away.

If there was a way to find out where Mordred was, he would do it. If there was a way to turn up at his doorstep, just to check, pretending to need to use a phone or a toilet or something just to catch sight or sound of him, to see if he was happy, healthy, then he would do it. But there’s nothing. Uther won’t tell him where Mordred is, at least not yet. He’ll have records, but Arthur can’t risk breaking in, surely-

Until he realises that actually, yes, he can. He enjoys the comfort of his life, but the stress of it, and the entrapment of it, the expectation, is not enough to keep his son at risk. Of course, he’d rather he wasn’t found out, but if he is…

Picturing it in his overtired, swimming mind, he finds himself not caring at all, if he was cut off. He has a degree, he has credentials, and he has the truth. He may have to live in a lesser style than what he’s accustomed to, but at least he’d have his son. But he won’t get caught. He’ll be careful, and he won’t allow it to happen.

He lets the numbers swim then, in tears he will always deny and in bleary eyes. And he dreams of people with dark hair and bright eyes, and himself holding them, shapeless and formless but loved, tight, feeling them slip into his heart.

\---

He goes fully prepared into the meeting with Uther. So much so that, if anything, his father should be proud. Arthur takes him through the plan, the message, the new target audience, but by the sales projections Arthur can tell he’s no longer listening. His nose had crinkled early on in the proceedings, possibly at the mention of the phrase _ethically minded target market_ , a synonym for _hippie_ , like he had something rotten underneath it and couldn’t bear to smell it. It had started as a small wrinkle, but now it has grown into a scowl, the one Arthur remembers only as reserved for his most heartfelt tellings-off as a child, and, later, for the moment when Morgana revealed- But no. This is not the time to think about that. It will only set him off guard, and Uther’s tight lips, the deep fissures where the skin bunches up around his eyes, the harsh gleam he gets in them with anger, are doing well enough at that already.

“In short, Father,” he ends, “I believe this to be the best solution to save the company.”

Uther stands, slow, and for a moment it looks as if it will all be fine, that Uther will lean over the table to get a better look at some of the pages and they’ll talk it through together, and Arthur will bring him round. But then he sweeps his hand over the desk, sending papers flying to the side of the office, drifting down on air currents to the carpet.

“Save the company! At what cost, Arthur? At that rate, anything the company ever stood for would be wiped away, the whole idea of Albion Motors completely whitewashed by your ill thought-out scheme.”

Uther’s voice is low and dangerous, laced with a sword-sharp edge. His dragon tie-pin trembles with the effort of holding in his emotion. Arthur should bow his head and nod along, but he’s never been able to resist the need to defend.

“With all due respect, Father, the company as it is now is failing. We need to change and adapt to continue.”

Uther’s eyes narrow yet further, as if they’re sharpening to a point. Arthur hadn’t thought that possible.

“Change, perhaps, but not an about-turn. I presume you have been speaking to that Emrys, the designer. Adequate for the job we give him, but with ridiculous ideas. Do not let his enthusiasm fool you, Arthur. They would not work incorporated into a business model.”

Arthur tenses at the mention of Merlin. At the insinuation that he, somehow, is being controlled by Merlin. But also at the degradation of Merlin’s ideas, the thought that they are less than marvellous, beautiful, genius. It surprises him, the need he has to defend Merlin’s honour. But he doesn’t; he lets Uther’s words hit him and cut him to the core, because he knows how much worse the onslaught would be if he dared to fight back any further.

“Of course, Father. I apologise, Father. I had let Mr Emrys carry me away with his designs, but I see now that they would never work in this company.”

Arthur’s petulance creeps into his voice a little, but Uther doesn’t notice. It’s clear, from his acceptance of the apology. Arthur keeps his eyes down to hide his anger.

Because he told the truth. The designs would never work in this company, not with Uther still at the helm. He is too fixed on his original vision for the company, too emotionally attached to the idea of it, the nostalgia for what it was when it began, to ever allow it to truly change. And it will fail, and there is nothing Arthur can do to stop it, because Uther will never permit anything extreme enough to save the company, and Arthur cannot work miracles, cannot conjure a market that no longer exists.

\---

They go out to the pub that night, Arthur and Lancelot and Gwaine and Merlin too, since he was in the office to be invited and needs to drown his disappointment. There are chips, and beer, and the worn, comfortable bench seats of the pub, in need of patching where years on end of trousers have rubbed them bare. Gwaine and Lance install themselves in chairs close to each other, leaving Arthur and Merlin all but alone.

Arthur has had no chance to speak to Merlin after the meeting, working slowly and mechanically through his lunch break after the humiliation and the frustration which speaking to his Father always brings, no matter how much he hopes otherwise.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says, quietly. Because the news must have got through to Merlin via the medium of Morgana. 

“It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have expected anything.”

“But you did, and you did because of me.”

“Arthur, you did the best you could.”

Merlin looks into his eyes in earnest, and Arthur understands what he’s trying to say, but he doesn’t entirely accept it. Though he knows his father well, he thinks he also knows his failings, and perhaps if he was more persuasive, perhaps if Uther valued him higher as a son, if he hadn’t made the mistake – but no, it wasn’t a mistake – with Morgana, then maybe he would have seen reason. Merlin needed him, and he failed.

But Merlin can’t work all that out, and Arthur can’t convey it all with a look; he won’t with words. As one, they sense the awkwardness of their gazes, and they smile a little, and they look away.

“I wish-” Arthur begins, but then he never finishes, because nothing’s going to change, and there is no use pretending that it might.

Merlin takes a chip and pushes it into his mouth.

“Eat. Stop moping. We’re all in the same situation here, but we’ve gone out to have fun.”

Arthur smiles at that, and turns to get Lance and Gwaine out of their seriousness. But all he can think of is a drastically unsuitable question.

“Lancelot! You haven’t told us about this family of yours you’re missing, why don’t you?”

Lance’s head shoots up, and he blushes a little, raking his hair back.

“There’s not much to tell. My wife, Elaine, I love her very much-”

He pauses to assist Gwaine in a coughing fit, mopping up the beer he spills all over the table while swallowing the wrong way.

“And then we have our son, Galahad. He’s three years old, now, he’s the most beautiful thing in my life.”

Lance opens his wallet and pulls out a small photograph, bent a little at the corners, of a little boy still with his baby fat, dimples in his cheeks as he smiles, wearing a bright green sunhat and little else, his light brown curls peeking out from underneath, blue eyes wide and full of laughter. Little white teeth poke out into his smile, and each of the fully grown men can’t help but smile in sympathy. All except Gwaine, who still smiles, but watches Lance instead, his eyes softening at the love that’s clear on Lance’s face.

He can only be around six months older than Arthur’s son, and he’s beautiful. Arthur looks down at the grain of the table and tries not to imagine the differences between this child and his own.

“He’s lovely,” Merlin says, and Lance beams.

“He is,” Lance says, “Elaine always says he’s adorable.”

“She’s right,” Gwaine says, and Arthur doesn’t really hear the rest. He’s too busy not thinking about Mordred.

The conversation has moved on by the time Merlin nudges him out of his reverie.

“Are you alright?” he asks, and Arthur is struck by how thoughtful he is, how soft and kind he can be, “Is it about earlier?”

Arthur frowns a little, trying to find a way to explain. He can’t tell the truth, because it would get out to Uther somehow, it always does. And he needs it to seem as if he’s forgotten all about Mordred, because Uther would disapprove of even thoughts turned his direction. And if Uther doesn’t know that Arthur thinks of Mordred, he won’t be worried about protecting the details of his location too carefully.

“In a way,” he tells Merlin, “It’s Father-related, but not in the way you think.”

“Can you explain?” Merlin asks, and Arthur opens his mouth to tell him, so trustworthy he seems. His gaze falls purely on Arthur, and it’s a little disconcerting, but only when Arthur concentrates on it. The attention he gives Arthur, the way his shoulders are lined to face him, his hand on the table as if to hold him there, listening to Arthur, is nice. It feels a little new, a little out of place in Arthur’s life, but not unwelcomed. And he wants to tell Merlin, he really does. He wants to trust him. But he doesn’t know if he can. He has no way of telling if Merlin would keep his secret, or if he’d take it straight to Uther to stay on the right side of him. Or just to spite Arthur, after his failure in the meeting this morning.

“Not really,” he says, and he regrets the words as soon as they are out of his mouth, but it’s the safest way. Mordred comes first. Before Arthur, before his friendships, even before Morgana.

Arthur watches Merlin’s face fall, and he finds himself wishing, absurdly, that he could make Merlin happy, keep his silly wide smile. But he steels himself, thinking about Mordred. About how Lancelot can carry a photograph of his child and go home most evenings to read him a bedtime story, play with him at the weekend; how unfair it is that one father can have a relationship that strong with his child and another can have never even set eyes on his son. About that bond, father and son, and how it should mean more to him than anything else.

Something in his face must show how much he regrets not being able to tell Merlin the truth, though, because there’s a little spark in Merlin’s eyes. Arthur isn’t sure what it means, hope or forgiveness or something else, but it makes him smile a little.

\---

Uther has a business meeting all weekend. It’s a long period of drinking and socialising and trying to get in the good books of the current owners, so he can buy out their company and sell its assets to his own. It’s vicious, but it shows that Uther trusts Arthur and Morgana enough to leave them alone in the same house for a weekend.

It’s only been half an hour since his car left the driveway when Arthur knocks on Morgana’s door. She opens it a little warily, still in her silk dressing gown.

“Arthur? Uther could turn around any minute and have forgotten something, you know. I’m willing to risk it, but normally you’re-”

There’s something wild about him, something a little too unrestrained, that makes Morgana stop and scrutinise him.

“Arthur? What is it?”

“Do you have a hairpin?” he asks, “I’m breaking into Uther’s office.”

She looks shocked for a moment, before the corners of her mouth twist up into a smile, her eyes gleaming.

“You’ve changed, Arthur,” she tells him, “But I’ll go and get some pins.”

There’s the sound of drawers opening before Morgana emerges again, brandishing three pins like weapons.

“What’re we looking for?”

Arthur takes the pins from her, then takes her hand, squeezing it tight.

“Mordred. I’m going to find Mordred for you.”

Morgana sucks in a breath, and she leans heavily against him. With her exhale she lets out a soft, vulnerable sound, something Arthur didn’t know she was capable of making. She always seemed too strong for that to him. She lets go, carefully, standing on her own again, and looks up at him. She seems child-like, in a way, until Arthur realises that it’s the combination of hope and trust in her eyes that causes it. It shocks him, that she can have that level of faith in him; that anyone can.

“Do you think you’ll be able to find anything?”

“Father always keeps records,” he says, “And ever since I can remember he’s kept anything important locked away in his study. If the details are anywhere, they’ll be there.”

Morgana snatches at his hand again and all but drags him towards the study. It takes several attempts to get the lock open, since Arthur has never done this before and only has stories told in the pub at University, half forgotten from alcohol, to refer to. But eventually the mechanism clicks.

They open each drawer of his filing cabinet. Check each file for anything referring to the name Mordred. Anything out of place at all. But it all makes sense, and everything can be accounted for.

Arthur turns to Morgana with a frown. She’s closed in a little, leaning on the desk, arms folded, dressing gown billowing around them. He almost reprimands her for a lack of modesty but realises, just soon enough, that it doesn’t matter. He’s seen it all before.

And he’s seen that face before. He recognises it as a loss of hope, but they’re not finished yet.

Arthur stands up, watches Morgana’s eyes widen as he walks up to her, close, holds her by the shoulders.

“We’re not done yet,” he tells her, face set in determination, and he shuffles her away from the desk and Uther’s locked desk drawer. He kneels next to it, inserts the hairpins, and Morgana watches as he frowns, pressing the pins into the lock until it clicks. The drawer slides out smoothly, with a slight susurrus.

The first file in the drawer, presumably because Uther has been preoccupied with thoughts of his children and their mistakes, is clearly labelled Mordred. Arthur cannot open it quickly enough. The first page is filled with pictures of their child, and while Arthur wants to look, to sear the image of his son to his mind, he flips past it to save Morgana the pain. The pages after that contain information, under the subheadings of Cenred King and Morgause King. There are occupations, dates of birth, and an address. It hasn’t changed in these years, and Arthur finds a scrap piece of paper, notes it down.

His face when he looks up at Morgana is widened by his smile, eyes bright with his achievement.

“Get dressed, Morgana,” he says, “We’ve got a long drive ahead.”

As she turns to leave he moves to slip the report back into the drawer. He hadn’t turned enough pages, clearly, because as he does so he catches sight of the last page. It’s a birth certificate, and out of curiosity Arthur just takes a quick look. Only to find that the registered parents are not, as he would have expected, him and Morgana. Instead Cenred and Morgause’s names are under the sections for Father and Mother. It’s not impossible to get Mordred back, he thinks, if he can find a way to convince them, or force them, to put Mordred up for adoption. But it’s another barrier, and Arthur curses his father under his breath. This is going to be difficult.

\---

When Morgana gets downstairs, hair still damp, cardigan hanging not quite right, Arthur is sitting at the dining table with a road map spread across it and an almost blunt pencil, drawing in a route towards Maidstone, Kent, where the Kings keep his son from him. When he looks up at Morgana he cannot think of a time when she has looked more beautiful than now, with her hair tied back and her eyes sharp, as if she’s ready for battle. He notices it with a distance that he was never sure he’d quite achieved, though; he can recognise her beauty but feels no urge to possess it. Perhaps age has calmed him. Perhaps Uther’s plan of separation has succeeded. Whichever it is, his feelings towards Morgana are purely brotherly, and he is happy to keep it that way.

Morgana leans over the map, surveying it, and nods. Clearly happy with his proposed route she collects her handbag from the chair she left it in the night before, and applies a little lipstick.

“Stop off at the garage on the way, would you Arthur?”

“Why?” he asks, barely looking up from the map.

“Because it’s going to be a rather long journey, we’ll need something other than the radio to keep us going.”

Arthur smiles to himself, folding up the map at last for Morgana to give him directions. Half an hour later they are on the road south, singing along to the crackling radio, with Morgana slipping humbugs into Arthur’s mouth as he drives. And Arthur is hard pressed to think of a time when he was happier.

It’s strange that whenever his mind goes blank he finds himself thinking of Merlin. Of the fragile bones visible in his wrists, protruding delicately like Arthur would imagine wings on a bird. At times Arthur thinks Merlin is so thin that he should be capable of flight if given wings, but he doesn’t care to test the theory. Merlin is too precious a commodity, and Arthur tries to trick himself into thinking that it’s just because of his skill in designing, but it’s not quite working.

So he concentrates on the road again, and he tries to forget his confusion in the trees and the patchy sunshine and The House of the Rising Sun on the radio.

He pulls up in front of the house and looks over to Morgana.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Are you sure Morgause won’t tell Uther?”

“Morgause hates Uther. She’ll only have taken Mordred because he’s family. And I’m family, too.”

Arthur nods, satisfied, and takes her hand possibly more for his own reassurance than hers.

It’s a beautiful house, covered in wisteria, with a beautifully kept lawn and a few flowerbeds. So far, Arthur is reassured. He knocks on the door, listens, waiting for an answer.

“Mordred!” comes the shout, “Get your toys out of the hallway!”

Arthur looks towards Morgana, a little worried. The woman’s voice is fraught, and it sets Arthur immediately on edge. But he has to give Morgana’s half sister the benefit of the doubt, and he waits for the door to be opened. When it is, it’s accompanied by the loud, violent barking of dogs, and then Morgause, her bleached blonde hair in a bun, her still slender figure looking almost like a teenager’s in her short day dress. She takes one look at Arthur and forgets both the dogs and the baby, leaning on the door and batting her eyelashes at him.

And then she notices Morgana. Her jaw drops, and she lets out a little sound that’s almost a whine, almost a scream.

“Sister!” she says, pulling Morgana inside and letting Arthur follow. There she pulls Morgana into a hug before drawing back, looking her up and down. She seems nervous, quiet and still, eyes watching Morgana for any sign of why she’s here.

“Darling, I’ve missed you. I wouldn’t have taken Mordred if I knew it meant not being able to see you, and you not being able to see him.”

“It would have been the same if anyone had taken him, Morgause.”

She breathes a sigh of relief at the lack of blame and gathers herself together a little. Arthur watches as she rebuilds her mask, the façade she hides behind. He recognises it easily; he does it himself often enough.

“Still, I’ve missed you. And I still can’t believe the lengths Uther went to to keep us separate.”

“I know, all Uther could see it as was a huge embarrassment.”

While they talk, Arthur’s eyes slip to Mordred, playing on the floor in the dining room. The dogs gather around him, nudging him with their noses, and they seem friendly enough. But there are three of them, and they are so much bigger than Mordred – it would be so easy for one of them to lose its temper, or to think that it was playing a fun game, and snatch him up in its teeth, and harm him forever.

Arthur pushes past Morgause and sweeps him up without thought.

“You really shouldn’t let the dogs this close to him.”

“Oh, they’re harmless,” she tells him with a dismissive wave, “You must be Arthur.”

She crosses to him, hips swaying provocatively, eyes never leaving his. When she stops, she lets her chest stick out a little. It’s calculated, and Arthur tenses against it. He hates to think he’s being played.

“Morgana’s told me so much about you,” she says, with the air of a confession.

“I can say the same,” he tells her, expressing only a polite monotone, “It’s good to meet you.”

It’s then that Mordred drops his toy and lets out an urgent sound. Arthur bends carefully, gripping the tiny life, feeling his every breath, and reaches the wooden horse to hand it back to Mordred. He stands up again, and that’s when he turns to look at Mordred properly.

He has Morgana’s dark hair, that’s certain. It’s thin and wispy now, but it holds all her colour. His eyes are entirely Arthur’s, blue and bright. This close, there’s a sweet, clean smell coming from him, under the layer of dog. He’s beautiful, Arthur thinks, and he wants Mordred for himself.

Morgana rushes to his side, and her eyes widen, imprinting the image of Mordred onto her irises. She can’t help but reach out to touch, stroking over his hair and kissing his round cheek. He smiles, and when he does tiny dimples form. It reveals teeth, perfect and white like tiny pieces of marble shining in his mouth.

It’s almost like a family for a moment, but then Morgause shatters it.

“You two look nothing alike, I would never have thought you were related.”

“Neither would we,” Arthur says, dry, and Morgause laughs a little.

Morgana pays no attention, eyes never leaving Mordred.

“It’s been a long time since I saw you last,” Morgana says at last, only quietly. Mordred laughs and pulls on her hair.

“I’ll get you both a drink,” Morgause says, and all Arthur can do is nod as he begins to learn Mordred, wiggling the wooden horse as if it’s going over a jump.

They stay there for hours, kneeling on the carpet, sipping politely on the wine Morgause has given them for no apparent reason. Learning how to play with Mordred, surprising themselves with how intuitive it is. Mordred lights up as if this is something new, something he’s not regularly given. He chats, and plays, and keeps within reach of either Arthur or Morgana. Arthur is glad of that; the house is full of dangers, he constantly has to pull Mordred back from something hard or heavy or sharp. And Mordred has so few toys, he tries to play with household objects, and it’s difficult to begin to tell him no when clearly it’s never been said in the context of _too dangerous_ before. Still, they play, all of them together, and the house is filled with their laughter and the sound of Morgause turning the pages of her magazine.

Until Cenred returns, presumably from the pub, with alcohol on his breath and a cold, impotent anger in his eyes. He hits one of the dogs when it jumps up to greet him, and Arthur winces at it, at how close he is to Mordred, how easily his target could change, could have already done many times before. Mordred doesn’t like the sound of Cenred’s voice. It’s obvious he’s frightened, and Arthur gathers him close, lets him press his face into his stomach.

Morgause gets up, putting on her flirtatious smile to go to greet him, to explain. Their voices rise and fall in the hallway, before there’s the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

Morgause stands in the doorway and looks at them. Arthur speaks first.

“It’s getting late,” he says, warring between his instinct to stay to protect Mordred and the logic that it could easily have happened before and is likely to happen again so one near miss is of no great regard, and lingering could harm their chances at getting him back. “We should be getting back.”

“Yes, well, it was lovely seeing you both,” Morgause tells them, “Visit again when you can, when Uther’s away.”

“We will,” Morgana reassures her with a kiss on each cheek, and they leave as quickly as possible.

\---

Uther notices nothing amiss when he returns in the early hours of Monday morning. Perhaps it’s because of the journey, but Arthur would like to think it’s more about the way he and Morgana reassembled the room, meticulous in their care, being careful even to dust the evidence of their presence away. It’s the sort of thing Uther would notice.

Arthur does more to keep Uther’s suspicions at bay – he gets into work early as usual, even tries to run a scheme past Uther when he gets in after lunch that Arthur knows he would never agree to.

But then he keeps thinking about Mordred, about how happy he could be if he were just given a little attention. About how much better things would be if it were him and Morgana looking after their son, for all of them. About how they’d never fit the traditional sense of family, but they’d at least be a close approximation of it. There would be the love and the care that Christmas broadcasts always claim to be the basis of perfect happiness.

And he thinks about the loneliness now. The friends he knows he cannot tell everything. The enforced separation from Morgana, the one person who could sympathise, who knows everything. He supposes it’s always been like this. Friends who didn’t really understand, who thought that because he had a father with money and a house you could get lost in all his problems were solved. And then of course his father, who he’s mostly certain loves him, but who without fail maintains his distance, never expressing any positive emotion towards Arthur. And the house; well, it’s true, it’s so large that it is possible to lose your way. It’s possible to lose your sense of yourself in the house and the wealth and the sense of prestige that it exudes. In the expectation that comes with being born into it, being a part of it. The house, and the estate, are one and the same with the family. It seems that neither can be allowed to crumble while the other stands.

Arthur’s feeling that he doesn’t belong has always been there, and he knows that, and at times like these he will acknowledge it. And perhaps the idea of a perfect holiday family is candied, rose-tinted glazing over the difficulties, the arguments, the hardships. But he wants it, despite that, the companionship and the love and the expression of that in biscuits and wrapping paper and ribbon and matching jumpers. Or whatever the non-seasonal variation of that is. He wants to feel a part of something special, something that’s his.

So, after spending hours wallowing in his need, when Gwaine appears in the doorway and asks him out to a drink he decides that it’s time to change things on his own, because no one else will for him. It’s time to make himself something like a family, make do and mend. He’ll gather the people he cares about, the people who care about him back, around himself. And maybe it will help dull the edge of how he feels.

“I’ll be there,” he tells Gwaine, “But you’ll have to wait a while, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

\---

Leon walks into the pub and his face instantly lights up. Arthur’s facing the door, back to the wall, and he knows Leon hasn’t seen them yet. But he doesn’t wave, doesn’t try to get his attention. He’ll find them.

Gwaine and Lance sit next to each other, close, on the bench. There’s a half-person gap between Arthur and Gwaine, and all but none between Gwaine and Lance. Merlin is in the disgusting, mouldy-tiled bathroom, because he really is the lightweight Arthur teases him for being.

Leon’s smile turns to one of recognition as his eyes sweep over the room, and he heads straight for Arthur. He takes a chair at the table, facing the three of them.

“So these are the boys from work, then?” Leon asks.

“Gwaine May and Lancelot DuLac, Sales and HR respectively. And this is Leon, my friend from University.”

“Oh, a friend,” Gwaine says, “I did wonder if you had any of them hidden away.”

“Very funny,” Arthur deadpans, but a movement in the corner of his eye catches his attention and he’s lost for a retort. Instead he looks up, and it’s Merlin almost colliding with an older man, nearly spilling his drinks everywhere, all limbs and awkwardness but lithe and beautiful somehow at the same time. Arthur smiles, indulgence and fondness and protection shining through, ready to stand at a moment’s notice should the man not take kindly to Merlin’s profuse apologies.

Leon catches his look and, back to the room as he is, draws the wrong conclusion. Though wrong is a subjective word. In many ways, it is more correct than anyone at the table is willing to admit.

“Who’s the girl?” he asks, “You’ve never told me about a girl.”

Arthur looks at Leon in something akin to horror. Leon takes his expression and turns around, takes in the lack of anything female in the pub. Merlin waves at Leon, oblivious to it all, and Leon almost knows.

In the corner, Gwaine and Lance look at each other and smile.

Arthur wishes he could laugh, could do something, anything, to brush off the implication. But he doesn’t. And now he can’t ignore this any more, especially since they all know. That he barely knows Merlin, for Arthur standards, anyway, and he wants to take him home and make him his girl for want of a better phrase. He wants to give Merlin everything, but it’s wrong and it’s not allowed and it’s going to mess with him so much now that he knows the meaning of all these little feelings about Merlin. All these little feelings that he was just learning to disregard.

Merlin, bless him, has no idea what’s going on.

“Did I knock someone’s beer over? There’s a scary guy right behind me, isn’t there?”

Arthur has to shake himself out of his state to reassure Merlin.

“No, no, it’s fine. I just remembered something, is all.”

Merlin grins, one of those smiles that cuts through Arthur, stinging more so now he understands.

“That’s good,” he says, and he settles in the chair opposite Arthur. As he sits his leg brushes Arthur’s and Arthur pulls back, burnt by the heat of it. Merlin, thank anything holy, doesn’t notice.

They talk about the company, but not about business. They talk about Gwen’s brother and the trouble he gives her, the gossip about who’s sleeping with who, the shock of Agravaine, who everyone trusted, being found committing fraud. But Arthur’s mind isn’t entirely on it. He keeps glancing at Merlin, though Merlin never notices, and he can’t help but keep thinking.

He had been debating telling them all about Mordred. But Arthur takes longer than that to trust, and his mind has other things to be occupied by. The drink doesn’t help, letting his mind reel between Merlin and his angles and the paleness of his skin, to Morgana and her smile, to the little giggling sounds that Mordred made. Merlin’s shirt is thin, and Arthur can see his nipples through the fabric. It makes his insides squirm, heats his cheeks more than is comfortable.

Arthur leaves early, pleads illness, goes home to go to bed.

But he can’t sleep, thoughts chasing across his mind, tossing feverishly until the covers wrap around him like they will suffocate him, alone and small in the vastness of the mattress, in the void of the house. It seems too quiet, too empty, even though Uther is only a few rooms away, Morgana little further. And the worst thing is that Arthur can’t make sense of it, can’t understand what any of it means. He’s adrift, and there is no one to ask for help, no one he knows how to trust. And he doesn’t know how much longer he can take it.

\---

It was Arthur’s fourteenth birthday when Uther summoned him to his office for what Arthur knew would be a _Serious Conversation_. Arthur stood in front of Uther’s desk with his hands clasped behind his back and waited as Uther looked him up and down, fingers steepled, contemplative.

“Now, Arthur, I understand that it is not long before you will start to find an interest in girls. Perhaps you have such feelings already.”

He left a pause for Arthur to contribute his thoughts. Arthur shook his head rapidly.

“Well, when you do, you must remember that you are a Pendragon. What do we know about Pendragons, Arthur?”

“They are brave and true, and they protect their family.”

Uther’s mouth quirked, almost into a smile.

“And to protect our family, a Pendragon must marry a woman from a suitable family.”

Arthur nodded, slowly.

“Of a similar wealth and status?”

Uther nodded, and Arthur basked in the approval.

“There can be no dalliances. Dances with girls I can understand, so long as they know that nothing can come of it.”

“Of course, Father.”

Uther smiled and opened his desk drawer. He took a medium sized package from under his desk and passed it over to Arthur. Arthur tore it open quickly, then opened the box inside. It was a treasure trove of toy cars, and a little model aeroplane. Exactly what he had wanted, but somehow anticlimactic compared to the flicker of a sign of Uther’s love.

Arthur was fourteen, but he still wanted his father to help him build and fly the plane. Uther could never find the time. In the end, Arthur stood on their hill and threw the fragile construction himself, only to watch it nosedive into the grass. He ran after it, near heartbroken, only to find it magnificently and miraculously unharmed.

\---

He comes into work exhausted, pale and a little gaunt. After all, a night of worry will have its toll. Gwen is in early, and she takes one look at him and goes straight to their kitchenette to make him a cup of tea. It’s a kind gesture, and the tea is perfect, but her heels slice through him when they click against the hard wooden floor, and he can’t bear her look of sympathy and curiosity, never pushing for information but always wanting to know.

Perhaps, if he’d known her longer, if he trusted her a little more, he’d open up to her, but instead when he opens his mouth all he is left with is silence.

“Is there anything I can help you with, Mr Pendragon?” she asks. And whether it’s the form of his name that she uses, unintentionally impersonal, or whether it’s the fact that it’s half past eight in the morning, it hardly matters because Arthur closes in.

“I really need to be getting on with work, Gwen,” he says and, as she leaves, he buries himself in futile tasks.

It’s just about midday when he hears Merlin’s voice outside his office in a low, surreptitious conversation with Morgana. He knows what’s coming, and groans, putting his work to one side and waiting for the inevitable visit.

Sure enough, the door opens just slightly.

“Arthur? Shit, you do look as awful as Gwen said- Can I come in?”

“Yes, Merlin,” he says, voice long-suffering. Merlin smiles as he walks in, quickly dropping to a concerned frown as he nears Arthur.

“You said you were ill last night, you shouldn’t have come into work.”

“And what do you think Father would have said to that? Besides, I’m not really that ill.”

Merlin gives Arthur a look of disbelief, and starts listing off on his fingers.

“The whole office is scared to raise their voice over a whisper today because you were short with Gwen, the shadows under your eyes are purple, your hair’s messed up and your shirt is untucked.”

Arthur makes a sort of flailing motion, only paying attention to the last one, frantically making to tuck the shirt in. Merlin reaches over the table to still him with a hand on his arm.

“Arthur, stop. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I can’t,” Arthur says, head bowed. “There are some things I have to deal with alone.”

“You can trust me,” Merlin says, squeezing slightly.

Arthur looks up, slowly.

“No, Merlin. I can’t.”

Merlin crumples in front of him. It’s as if he becomes disappointment, and his face shuts in, his eyes dull.

“I understand,” he says, and he stands up. Without another look towards Arthur he leaves, and Arthur wants to call him back, wants to qualify his statement with the truth, with the fact that it’s Arthur’s deficiency and not Merlin’s. But he chokes, and his words die on his lips, and he says nothing.

The hours blend into each other, and Arthur doesn’t leave his office. He works, reading reports, but he finds himself stuck on the same sentence over and over, words that make sense but won’t quite stick.

And then there’s Morgana’s voice. Low, and harsh.

“Arthur. Tell me why Merlin just dictated his resignation to me.”

Arthur stares up at her.

“He didn’t.”

“It would appear that he did. He’s been trying to get good designs past Uther for months, and he was just about to give up hope when you came along. I don’t know what happened and I don’t want to, but now he seems to think he would better appreciated elsewhere.”

Morgana slides the letter, ink still wet from the typewriter, across the desk to him.

“Lancelot is having a garden party on Saturday. Merlin will be there. You’ll go to it, Arthur, and you’ll take back whatever you said, and you’ll sort out this mess you’ve made.”

“I don’t know if I can,” he tells her, running a hand through his hair.

Morgana looks at the sight of him, dishevelled and a little ruined, torn, and she takes a little pity on him.

“Of course you can, Arthur. You always were a better person than you give yourself credit for.”

She leaves the letter on his desk and she, too, leaves.

Arthur stares at it until the letters swim into each other on the page. But it’s a step too far, and he can’t bring himself to read the words they spell out. He takes the page, and he crumples it into a ball, and he throws it into the bin.

\---

Saturday comes, and Arthur is still unsure about the party. But Morgana goes to his room and sets out an outfit for him, and he can’t let her down. And when he thinks about Merlin, he knows he can’t let him go.

The week has been terrible. Merlin mostly works from home or with the engineers as it is, but he made a conscious effort to avoid the office. So Arthur couldn’t explain, or apologise. Not that he seems able to find the words for it anyway.

But it’s not even that, he thinks. He dresses mechanically, straight trousers and a patterned shirt he didn’t know he owned, and turns to Morgana before she can leave.

“I’m afraid,” he says, just loudly enough for her to hear. She turns, watches him, and for a moment it’s like they’re children all over again. She gives him a look, a little stern, but mostly just open and ready to listen.

“If I say the wrong thing, if I do the wrong thing, I’ll lose him forever. And I’m not good with emotions, you of all people know that.”

“I think all he really wants is an attempt, Arthur. He will understand.”

Arthur sighs, and looks away.

“But it’s not just that. It’s- If I get this wrong, what chance do I have with more delicate things? With Mordred.”

Morgana smiles and stands, goes to pick out a tie for him.

“Arthur, they’re completely different situations. Besides, you’ll get Mordred back fine. You’ll see.”

He takes the tie, and smiles a little.

“Go get changed,” he tells her, and she does.

\---

Lancelot leads them in through the side gate, between the house and the garage to the garden behind. It’s a little too long, but beautifully kept. Trees grow straight out of a neat lawn, with a gravel path snaking between them and flower beds. Just behind the house, Gwen is talking to a woman in a green dress who Arthur has never met and can only assume is Lance’s wife. Morgana rushes straight over to the two of them and pours herself a drink. Arthur hesitates, looking around for a moment.

“Come and see this,” Lancelot says, pulling him away towards what looks like a short brick wall. Arthur frowns when he sees a metal grating and coals underneath.

“It’s a sort of grill,” Lance explains, “I got the idea from Gwen’s father. Apparently it’s very easy to use.”

“Well, it certainly looks interesting.”

Lance smiles, but then his gaze shifts. Off over Arthur’s shoulder, where something must be taking his attention. Arthur turns to see that it’s Gwaine, scruffier than ever. But Lance smiles widely at him, and touches Arthur briefly on the shoulder to push past, barely even looking his way.

“Excuse me.”

After that, Arthur drifts back to Morgana and Gwen and, as he finds out, Elaine. She’s a lovely woman, perfectly kind, full of laughter. They go together, Arthur thinks, her and Lance.

Merlin lets himself in through the side gate, heading straight over to Elaine. She nudges Arthur, and a knot forms in his stomach, of fear and almost betrayal. He can read the look on her face, he knows who’s behind him. Of course Morgana would have told Elaine the story, of course she would know, of course Arthur would be humiliated even more than necessary. But there is no use in impotent anger against Morgana, not now, not when there are much more important things to be dealing with.

Slowly, gathering himself as if for a fight, Arthur turns to face him. Merlin stops, and his expression hardens.

“But you don’t like me. You don’t trust me.”

“I never said that,” Arthur tells him, “Just let me explain.”

Merlin looks around for a moment, then nods slightly, walking off towards where a few chairs are placed under a tree. He looks even better out of a suit, Arthur thinks. His trousers are tight and his blazer falls just short of his arse, so Arthur can see its perfect curve. It doesn’t help him to collect his mind as he follows. Merlin sits, leaning back, looking at ease. Arthur paces in front of him.

“I never meant anything bad about you,” he tells Merlin, scared and feeling far too small and hoping with all he has that his words make sense, “It takes a lot for me to trust someone, is all.”

“I trusted you,” Merlin says. Arthur is surprised that he doesn’t sound angry, just hurt.

“I know. But there’s more behind this than you know, and when I’m ready I promise I will tell you.”

“If I’ll come back to work.”

Arthur turns to him. Smiles a little.

“We can’t do without you.”

Merlin folds his arms.

“It’s different without you,” Arthur tells him, quiet. It hurts a little even to say the words, and Arthur knows why, but he can’t act on it, can’t explain it. Not now and not ever.

“I don’t like it,” Arthur says, as close to the truth as he is willing to get.

“Well,” Merlin laughs, “We can’t have you unhappy, now, can we?”

It’s not forgotten, Arthur knows, as Merlin walks back over to the girls, but it’s at least in part forgiven, and that’s more than he had hoped for.

Arthur follows him, stopping short at the drinks table for Pimms. Something with a higher alcohol content would be welcome, he thinks, surprising himself, but this will have to do. He takes just a moment to recover, to set his face into a smile again, looking out over the garden. And that’s when he sees it.

Lancelot is leaning back against an apple tree, with Gwaine standing in front of him. Lance reaches up to pick an apple, and hands it to Gwaine.

They’re too close, Arthur thinks. There’s something that isn’t right.

He tears his eyes away and walks back to the others. They’re all oblivious, but Arthur can’t stop glancing back over. Gwaine takes the apple and bites into it. There’s a click, small and nearly unnoticed, from beside him. Elaine leaves the plate of beautifully carved tomatoes she was carrying, and leans into him. Her wide skirt folds around his legs.

“What’re you thinking, Arthur?”

He shakes his head slightly.

“It’s nothing.”

“It must be something, sweetheart,” she says.

Gwaine drops the apple, leans even closer. The apple rolls over the ground, its movement erratic. Lance’s hands loop around his waist, and they both shift closer again. Their lips touch, and Arthur can’t seem to look away. 

“Elaine,” he says, quietly, “There’s something you should see.”

“All I see is the garden and the boys, Arthur.”

“Look closer at them, Elaine. At what they’re doing.”

She laughs then, an open, innocent sound. It’s enough to make Arthur rip his eyes away from the kiss and look at her. Her hair looks almost red in the light, and her smile makes him feel safe. She smells of strawberries and Pimms. There’s something about her that exudes mother, even though she’s little older than he is. She doesn’t deserve to be hurt.

“Why are you laughing when they’re ridiculing you? Flaunting what they’re doing at your own party!”

“Arthur,” she says, and her smile fades, “It’s not what it looks like, I’ll-”

There’s a sound from inside the house. Not loud, but enough for a mother to recognise. Elaine’s eyes widen almost comically, and she glances through the French doors.

“Lancelot!” she calls, “Over here, you have some explaining to do!”

She runs off into the house, calling out for her son. Arthur turns back, waiting for Lancelot to reach him.

“How dare you?” he asks, shouting his righteous anger across the garden, “She’s a lovely woman, and she has your child. How dare you hurt her? With a man, no less.”

Lancelot sighs, just a little. Merlin watches from a little way off with concern, biting his lip.

“Don’t judge me, Arthur, not yet. Not until you know the whole story.”

“What else is there to know?”

Gwaine comes up behind Lance, rests a hand on his arm almost protectively.

“Maybe if you stopped talking, Princess, you’d get to hear.”

Lance smiles, exasperated, but leans back into Gwaine’s touch.

“Elaine doesn’t love me, so what I do can’t hurt her. We met when I was working for her father, a few years ago. It was summer, and we were both bored, and we found ourselves spending more time with each other than we could ever have expected. We started an affair, not because we loved each other, but because it was fun. Elaine stole these pills from her mother’s drawer, replaced them with sugar pills. She was taking them to stop her having a baby, but at her time of life it was ridiculous to even think that she could.”

There’s a low laugh from behind them, and Arthur turns. Elaine holds Galahad in her arms, still sleepy from his nap. He curls in tight to her, head tucked into her shoulder.

“And then I got pregnant anyway. Most people would have run away, but not Lance.”

She smiles, and there’s a mix of friendship, and gratefulness, and perhaps even pride in her eyes.

Morgana is listening, and the story resonates with her. Something breaks, something that protected her secret from the world. The two halves of her come crashing together; the façade she puts on and all her hidden problems.

“So we’re free to see whoever we want,” Lance continues, “So long as the marriage isn’t broken. And we keep Galahad safe and happy. He might not have been planned, but he’s a blessing.”

Arthur looks between them all. They seem happy, and he knows he was wrong to judge. But he can’t relax. He watches Lancelot and Gwaine, as they hold each other, as they kiss, and something pools in his stomach. Something he doesn’t recognise, that sickens him. Something he can’t be entirely sure is disgust.

But then the thoughts are ripped from him, as Morgana cries out from closer than he remembers her being. There’s movement out of the corner of his eye, and he whirls to see her drop like a stone, only to be caught by Gwen.

\---

Arthur holds her head in his lap while the rest of them stand back to give Morgana air. He’s panicked, it’s obvious. He breathes shallowly and watches her chest rise and fall.

“Arthur,” Merlin kneels next to him, quiet, “It’s only a faint. She’s fine.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Just let her wake up, then we’ll see.”

Arthur takes a deep breath and does as he’s told. It doesn’t take long until Morgana opens her eyes.

“What happened, ‘Gana?”

She sits up, looking around a little, before her eyes settle on Elaine.

“Elaine, I had no idea! I never even thought-”

They all frown down at her, and she opens her mouth to explain, then stops. She shuffles closer to Arthur and whispers. 

“I want to tell them. Can I tell them?”

Arthur glances up. And, they keep Lancelot and Gwaine’s secret, he thinks. And they can sympathise. So rationally there’s nothing to worry about. His gut doesn’t like the trust, and his throat clenches like he’s jumped off a cliff, and he’s waiting for someone to catch him, to take hold of the rope and pull him back, even though he can’t help but think they won’t. But he also knows that if this news of a shared situation cannot stop that panicked reaction nothing ever will, and he can only brave the danger. Especially if it means this much to Morgana to hear a similar story, to know someone who’s been failed in the same way, that she would faint because of it.

“Tell them.”

“Arthur and I were engaged once,” Morgana begins, “Without Uther’s knowledge. Our doctor prescribed me a pill, the same one you were taking.”

“So you got pregnant?” Elaine prompts. She gathers Galahad a little closer to her.

Morgana doesn’t answer more than a nod, staring at Galahad, lost in thought.

“We told Father when we found out,” Arthur says, “But it turned out he hasn’t been entirely honest with us, or with the world in general. Because Morgana is his daughter.”

Morgana moves to take over, but Arthur keeps talking. Now he’s started, it’s like opening a dam; he can’t seem to stop the words. He tells them about Uther taking Mordred, about how he sent them both to the work of forgetting that they ever had a baby. Things that he’d refused to acknowledge himself come out, too. Like how, when he got to University, he couldn’t stop thinking about his child, about whether he was alright, safe, loved. About how he couldn’t help but feel a failure for not being able to forget, like his father wanted and fully expected. How he himself doesn’t even know when he stopped worrying about his father and realised that it was acceptable to miss a son he’d never met. He tells them about their visit to Morgause and Cenred in Kent, and about his determination to get his son back.

“No wonder you’ve been… unwell,” Gwen says, before promptly clapping her hand over her mouth. Arthur just smiles.

“I didn’t think, I didn’t realise that it would have happened to anyone else, that I could talk to anyone else,” Morgana says, looking up at Elaine.

“Neither did I. All this time we’ve known each other, and neither of us knew. You must have felt so alone with the secret.”

“I did, that’s why I- To think, all this time, that I didn’t need to be, I think I must have forgotten to breathe.”

Merlin leans a little closer to Arthur to speak to him, low.

“That was a huge secret. Just so you know, I’m not angry. Not any more, not at all.”

Arthur nods, as close as Merlin will get to a thanks. He doesn’t tell Merlin that there’s another secret, a larger one, a more frightening one. Just out of Arthur’s reach, too great to even put a name to. And so dizzying in its meaning to think too deeply about.

“You know,” Merlin announces, “My Mum works in an orphanage, down in Kent. If you think Mordred is being mistreated she might be able to help.”

“You would do that?” Morgana gets up, slowly, to hug Merlin, “Thank you.”

Merlin looks up over her shoulder to find Arthur staring at them, staring at him, the expression on his face pure disbelief and wonder.

\---

They meet in the pub, Monday after work, to discuss Mordred and what to do about him. Arthur, Merlin, Leon, Lancelot and Gwaine, tucked into their usual corner.

Now that he knows their secret, Arthur can hardly believe he missed Lance and Gwaine’s relationship. It’s more than a little obvious, in the looks they give each other, loving and reproachful in turns, the little touches that they let slip by until they realise where they are and shuffle apart, only to start the whole process of moving to each other again. But, the problem is, they’re not careful enough. It’s going to get one of them hurt and, while Arthur doesn’t entirely approve of what they’re doing because he shouldn’t, it’s wrong; it’s distaste he feels, honestly – he doesn’t want them hurt.

The arrival of their drinks breaks Arthur out of his thoughts. And really, he can’t put it off any longer. He reminds himself, again, that asking for help is not a sign of weakness, of a lack of ability to be a good father, and he speaks.

“Right, should we start?”

“I’ve spoken to Mum, briefly, on the phone. And I didn’t name you, Arthur, or give anything away. Don’t panic.”

Arthur wipes at the condensation on his pint glass. Because of course, he won’t admit it, but panic is exactly what he had been doing. He tries not to look up at Merlin; his face would give it all away.

“She says that all you really need to do is alert the local council to the conditions he’s living in. Perhaps threaten just a little with your influence. They’ll investigate, and if it’s still at the standard you saw, they will take Mordred away. Once he comes up for adoption again, you and Morgana just have to come forward as the birth parents. Since you’re unmarried, the authorities wouldn’t let it be done any other way.”

Arthur nods for a moment, impressed and content for a moment. So willing is he to believe that regaining his son would be that easy, that he misses the flaw in the plan while Gwaine toasts to their success.

“Wait, wait-”

Gwaine puts his drink down slowly, watching Arthur with concern.

“What is it, Princess? Getting scared?”

“He doesn’t mean that, Arthur,” Lance tells him, hurriedly, “We know you’d never-”

“No, that’s not it. It’s just, Father’s made it more difficult than that. I didn’t want to tell you in front of Morgana because I didn’t let her know when I found out, I knew it would only hurt her, but Mordred is registered as Morgause and Cenred’s son.”

Leon frowns, deep and concerned, already working through possible solutions. Gwaine’s face twists, near into a snarl.

“Of all the dishonest, cruel things a father could-”

Lancelot stops him with a sharp poke to the stomach.

“Gwaine, enough. In his own way, he did it to protect Arthur. But we will get around it. All it means is that Arthur, you have a fight on your hands.”

\---

The accounts are slipping further from the black towards the red. Arthur thinks of _colour 77130 on the paint list; dark, almost bloodied_. It’s an exercise in procrastination, in ignoring the problem. The company is injured, and its lack of orders is a gaping wound. No matter how Arthur economises, no matter how many assets he sells, money will still be lost unless the product is improved. It’s obvious in the balance sheets, and spelt out clearly in Gwaine’s reports. No matter how hard the salesmen work, they cannot sell what customers do not want.

And there is the stumbling block. There can be no changes to the product unless Uther approves; which he never will. This company is almost another child to him, and he cannot see a way to let it adapt. So all Arthur can do is buy time. Perhaps, he thinks, he will have some credit for that. Or at best, given more time with his business only just clinging to its cashflow, Uther may see reason at last.

So Arthur does the only thing he can. It’s hard, and he doubts he’s thinking straight with everything else that’s going on in his life. But he has no other choice; at least none that he can see.

He picks up the phone to get straight through to Morgana.

“Mr Pendragon?” she says, stumbling over the title.

“Miss LeFay, send Mr DuLac into my office if you would.”

He puts the phone down, because now is not the time for a chat, not when he’s about to ruin the lives of hundreds of people.

It takes two minutes for Lancelot to finish what he’s doing and enter Arthur’s office. Arthur gestures him to sit, and passes him a slip of paper.

“Read.”

Lancelot glances up at him, worried, and does. Arthur waits for him to finish, watches the horror appear over his face.

“Arthur, this can’t be right. You can’t be doing this.”

“You know it’s the only way,” Arthur tells him, resigned.

“But half the workers? There won’t be anywhere for them to go!”

Arthur nods a little, looks away.

“I know. But we have to scale down production, at least until I can bring Father around to the idea of change. Or everyone will lose their jobs.”

Lance looks back down at the paper, staring at it to take it him. But he can’t dispute Arthur’s solution. He knows from Gwaine that the company needs measures this drastic.

“The Newcastle factory can take it. There aren’t that many jobs in the area, but there should be enough, especially if our competitors start hiring.”

Lancelot looks up, distraught.

“And Uther signed off on this?”

“It was the only scheme he would.”

Arthur can see that Lancelot is seething, but he does well hiding it. Arthur is angry himself, too, for Uther’s inability to even consider a new perspective. Despite the fact that fresh solutions were what he’d brought Arthur in for. But he can understand Uther’s need to protect his vision, and ultimately that trumps all other feeling where the business is concerned. This way, Arthur will keep the business safe for just a little longer. His father must be pleased.

Lancelot is silent for a while, and they watch each other, and they both know what the other is thinking. That it’s not fair, but what choice do they have? After all, Arthur has no real power over the company, not really.

“Arthur,” Lance says at last, running his hand through his hair, “I understand, but I can’t do this. Not to so many people.”

“You won’t be doing it. The responsibility is mine. My name will be on the letters you send out. It’s my choice.”

“Not Uther?”

“Father is away and besides, this is a test he has set me.”

Lance looks up at him again. Arthur could swear all he sees is pity, but his words are of thanks.

“Thank you, Arthur. I’ll get this in motion.”

Lancelot leaves, and the door clicks shut. Once Arthur is sure he is gone, his head drops to the desk.

It’s only a few minutes before there’s a shadow in the glass of the door. Morgana; he can tell from the height and the hair, loose where Gwen’s is always pulled back. News travels quickly, and Lance will have told Gwaine, who could not keep a secret if it killed him. Not for the company, anyway. But Morgana doesn’t knock, or even just barge in. She stands there for a good three minutes, and Arthur watches her. Eventually she carries on walking past.

In the end, it’s Gwaine who is the first to brave Arthur’s office. At five o’clock, on the dot, without so much as a knock.

“You need a drink after today,” he says, “You and Lance both. Come on, first round’s on me.”

There’s paperwork Arthur should be staying late to work on, but since he’s only managed to read through one report since Lancelot left, and only took in about a quarter of what it was saying, he knows it’s a lost cause. So he files it all away in his desk, locks it, and goes with Gwaine.

\---

It’s nice in the pub. Warm, comfortable, grimy. Arthur sits with a cigarette in one hand and a pint in the other. He can laugh at Gwaine blowing smoke into Lance’s face and almost forget that the only way he could save their jobs and their incomes and those of thousands of others was to take them away from a sacrificed few. Still, he thinks, there’s consolation in that it’s what his father clearly wants, what he expects.

He takes another long pull on his cigarette, let’s the smoke drift out over the table. Merlin’s hand darts out and he waves it away, dispersing it throughout the room. He flashes a grin at Arthur, daring him to tell him off, and Arthur almost does. Except then there’s the shouting.

“Arthur Pendragon? Is there an Arthur Pendragon in here?”

He stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray and gets up, nods at the waitress calling his name.

“There’s a phone call for you, Mr Pendragon. They’re very insistent.”

He goes, takes the handset from the waitress.

“Arthur?” The voice on the end of the phone is Morgana’s and it’s clear, but there’s a note in it that strikes wrong with Arthur.

“Morgana? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Uther. He’s been involved in a car accident on the way back from his meeting. He’s unconscious, we’re at the hospital now.”

“I’m coming,” he says, and he slams the phone down and he runs back to the table, for his jacket and his car keys, and he tries to leave. But Merlin’s hand wraps around his wrist, vice-tight, and holds him back.

“Arthur, what is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Father’s hurt,” he says, “He’s in hospital, let go.”

Arthur tries to wrench his hand back, but Merlin only stumbles with him, holding on tighter.

“You can’t drive like this. Let me take you, I haven’t had much to drink.”

It only takes Arthur a moment to decide. After all, it makes sense. He is in no fit state to drive, and the Pendragons have already taken one hit from a car accident tonight. He nods, and lets Merlin take him out to his car.

They find Morgana sitting in the waiting room, Elaine’s arm wrapped around her, Gwen bustling around getting them all endless supplies of tea.

“We can’t see him yet,” Morgana tells Arthur, “The doctors are still busy.”

Arthur nods and takes a seat next to her. Elaine tries to draw back from Morgana as he sits, but Morgana grabs her hand and holds her there.

“Anyone for tea?” Gwen asks. There’s a mass of quietly restrained nodding, and she bustles off back to the café down the hall.

They settle to wait, and it’s not long. Uther’s injuries are straightforward, so the doctors tell them, but he lost a lot of blood waiting for the paramedics to be able to reach him through the wreckage, and there’s the possibility that his brain was starved of oxygen for a few minutes, or possibly longer.

“He’s stable,” the doctor says, and the words wash over Arthur, “There is every hope for him to wake up. We just don’t know when, and there is always the chance that he won’t.”

Arthur can’t quite believe it. He knows the doctor isn’t lying, and yet it just doesn’t seem true to him.

“Take me to him. Let me see him.”

The doctor hesitates for a moment, then nods.

“This way.”

Uther lies in a bed, covered by a simple white sheet. His eyes are shut, and he looks more peaceful than Arthur has ever seen him. The lines around his eyes are smoothed, and he seems softer. And yet, he’s pale. Yellowed, a little, like a photograph left too long in the sun. And there are tubes, everywhere. A blood transfusion into one arm, a bag of something else feeding into the other. Arthur reaches out for his hand and holds it. He’s never seemed so fragile.

“Father,” Arthur whispers, then louder when there is no response, no miraculous opening of his eyes.

He turns to the doctor.

“We will keep him alive for however long it takes. Transfer him to a private hospital if you have to. My Father will not die because I would not pay whatever was necessary.”

The doctor leaves to take care of Arthur’s instruction, and Merlin slips closer. Arthur only notices when he takes his hand. And if Arthur squeezes it a little too hard, then neither of them notice, and neither of them think to care.

Across the bed from him, Morgana watches Uther sleep, and her face is entirely blank. After all, he took her chid; he took Mordred’s and Morgana’s chances at happiness and true family. He deserves no better than this.

\---

Arthur gets home long after Morgana. It’s late, and the remains of her evening with friends and a bottle of wine are scattered through the dining room. Arthur pours himself a glass of wine and sits.

He’s spent the last few hours signing forms for Uther’s transferral to the nearest private hospital if he fails to wake within the week, and later at the police office. They had Uther’s possessions; his suitcase from the meeting, his wallet, his keys. Arthur plays with them between his fingers now, tapping them on the edge of the table. They’re his, at least until Uther wakes. It’s all his, now.

He clicks the metal of the keys against the glass. It makes a hollow sound. Other than that the house is silent.

He must drift off, because the next thing he notices is that he’s being shaken awake. It’s little darker than when he shut his eyes, so he can’t have been asleep for more than half an hour. Morgana kneels in front of him, still fully dressed.

“Arthur?”

“I thought you were in bed,” he says.

“No, I wanted to talk to you when you got back in. Can we?”

Arthur blinks himself further awake, reaching out for her.

“He’s going to be alright, ‘Gana.”

“No,” she says, a little impatient now, taking a seat next to him, “I wanted to say that now’s the time to act. With Mordred. Uther can’t stop us now, and if, when, he wakes up, we’ll have Mordred and there’ll be nothing he can do. Don’t you think, Arthur?”

“You remember that promise I made to you? Over my horse, and your shoe? It’s still there. I will do everything I can.”

He tells her only that, because it’s too late and they’ve had too much upheaval already to have the conversation about the registry of Mordred’s birth as Morgause and Cenred’s child. Morgana’s face lights up, and Arthur thinks that perhaps he’s done the right thing, to give her hope today. He will tell her the truth, in time, but now is not right.

“Now will you sleep?” he asks her, “It’s late and I need you in the office tomorrow, especially if I’m not.”

“That’s likely to be a possibility?” she asks, getting up and stealing a sip of Arthur’s wine. He smiles, genuinely, for the first time in what seems like an age, though it’s only since earlier this evening.

“I need to sort out Father’s affairs, his appointments, everything. I’ll have to stand in for him, just for a while.”

He presses a hand into the small of Morgana’s back, pushing her upstairs. For a moment he has a flash of a vision of them, much younger, standing like this and laughing. It makes him smile, but it’s a bitter thing. They were happy, then, and they had a better kind of hope. Of being able to live right first time around, not of fixing all their mistakes.

Arthur sleeps in snatches. His mind is with Uther, doing all the sleeping for both of them, in his hospital bed. And with Morgana, too, and Mordred. His family. When he sleeps, though, Merlin joins them all. And he won’t remember it, but he should. Because Merlin is important in more ways than he knows, ways he can’t even contemplate, not yet.

\---

Uther hasn’t woken up when Arthur rings in the morning.

He doesn’t really know why he does it. The hospital has their phone number, would have called had there been any change. He supposes he needed to hear for himself.

Still, it’s a confirmation. He takes Uther’s keys and he unlocks the door to his office. But he doesn’t feel any more right to it than he did that weekend when he picked the lock with Morgana. Uther’s filing cabinet sits to one side, filled with details of businesses Arthur barely even knows the names of. It’s far too daunting, and he knows that he has so much to do, because even though Uther could wake any moment it’s his responsibility to keep everything ready for his father’s return.

And then there’s the desk. With the drawer that Arthur knows contains everything he needs. And it’s so tempting, as if the file is calling to him. He can bring his son home. Now.

But were he to take the file out now, he’d never stop. Mordred would be his only aim, and he’d lose everything. Everything Uther spent his life working on. And then there’d be nothing for any of them. No inheritance, nothing to live on. Nothing to build on. And more importantly, when Uther wakes, he would be devastated to have lost his achievements, his kingdom of businesses, his pride. And Arthur could never do that to him. When Uther wakes he will expect everything to be how he left it, and Arthur will ensure that is the case.

So he opens the top drawer of the filing cabinet, and he thumbs past A for Albion Motors, and he takes the next file down to the dining room, and he starts to work.

\---

It’s lunchtime when Arthur starts to flag. There’s just too much information to process. He’s made sure to call each of Uther’s second in commands, to let them know what’s happening, and to make sure they change nothing. They cannot have Uther’s approval, so they cannot make any decisions. Because they are Uther’s companies, not anyone else’s; not even Arthur’s. Only Uther can choose what happens to them.

But it’s repetitive, and absorbing the details of the companies is difficult, and having to tell manager after manager after manager that Uther is ill, with no way of knowing if or when he’ll recover starts to get to Arthur. The pain of it, fresh and new with every time he voices the fact. So he does the only thing he can think of. He calls Leon.

“Leon Knight, Department of Health.”

“Leon, it’s Arthur.”

Leon’s voice takes on actual tone now, a brightness that would be refreshing were Arthur not so tired.

“Arthur! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Father is in hospital and I- I don’t really know what to do.”

“Is he alright? What happened?”

“He had a car accident; he’s unconscious and the doctors don’t know when he’ll wake. Can you come round? For dinner?”

“Of course I can. Straight after work.”

Arthur works again after that, soothed a little by the fact that Leon will be there soon, and he’ll have advice and sympathy and it will all feel that little bit better. And he gets somewhere, he manages to call all of Uther’s companies to let them know. And, by dinner time, he at least knows all the businesses’ names by heart.

He lets Leon in through the front door when the bell rings.

“I came as quickly as I could,” he tells Arthur.

“You’re here before Morgana, I’m impressed.”

“I worked quickly. Now, how’ve you been getting on since we last spoke?”

“I’ve been familiarising myself with Father’s businesses, calling all the managers.”

“To tell them that you’re now in charge?”

“My first command being to keep going as they are until Father wakes.”

They’d been walking in towards the living room but here Leon stops.

“Arthur, no.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“That’s not how a business works,” Leon begins, but then stops short at the deep furrowed frown on Arthur’s face, “Come on, let’s sit, we can talk properly.”

They get to the living room in silence and sit there, in chairs across from each other. Leon takes out a cigarette and wordlessly passes one to Arthur.

“Tell me, Arthur, what happens if a business doesn’t adapt to its environment?”

“It fails.”

“So, if you don’t let the businesses change, what will Uther wake up to?”

“Failed businesses,” Arthur says, and he sighs.

“So why the reluctance?”

“I can’t do it Leon. The businesses belong to Father, not me. I can’t start making decisions about them while he’s still alive, before he’s even given me leave to do it- It would be like stealing them from him.”

“How would it, Arthur? You’d just be a custodian, a caretaker for them all, until he gets back.”

“I don’t know, Leon. We have different ideas, Father and I. He wouldn’t like the way I took the companies, and I won’t be happy leading them in the way he does. I’m not my Father, and I can’t become him. I won’t.”

“Then you have to lead them your way, Arthur. You have to do something, at least.”

Arthur takes a deep drag on his cigarette, gets up and heads for the liquor cabinet. He takes out two glasses and pours them both a whiskey. He needs a little anaesthetic.

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Think about it, at least, Arthur.”

There’s the sound of the door opening, and Arthur drains his whiskey before going to greet Morgana.

“How was work?” he asks, taking her handbag and jacket as she sheds them.

“They’re all very worried about you,” she tells him, soft, “But other than that it was fine. Everyone got on with their work, no bullying required.”

Arthur smiles at that, then tugs at her hand.

“Come on, we have a guest.”

“Who’s this?” Morgana asks, as she sets eyes on Leon.

“Morgana, this is Leon, my friend from University.”

She grins at the mention of his name. After all, she’s heard all the stories of their misadventures.

“Leon, I’ve heard so much about you.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you after all Arthur’s praise.”

“Really? You praise me, Arthur?” she teases, “But what are you doing here, Leon. It’s been a while, why now?”

“Well,” Leon says, frowning, “Arthur needed a friend after what happened to Uther.”

Morgana’s face clouds at that. Leon almost reaches out to her in sympathy, but stops to let Arthur.

“Of course,” she says, quiet.

Arthur glances at the clock in search of a release for the sudden tension in the air.

“Well, it is almost dinner time, we should go and be seated.”

“What’s your famous cook making us tonight?” Leon asks, glad of the change of subject.

Arthur leads the way out of the door.

“Do you know? I never thought to ask.”

\---

Arthur goes to work early. He wants to be alone, with his loss and with the new weight of responsibility.

He takes the new set of keys, his father’s set of keys, and he goes to his father’s office. He thumbs through the keys, to find the one that opens his office door.

“Arthur?”

He spins, holding the keys out almost as a weapon. In front of him, the corner of Merlin’s mouth twitches. Arthur looks like a blonde James Bond, suave and suited and gun-wielding.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Arthur slumps a little.

“What are you doing here?”

“I thought you might need someone here. Morgana said you would be coming in today.”

Arthur nods a little. It’s not an admission of his need, but it’s close to it.

“Are we doing this, then?” Merlin asks him, “Together?”

“Yes,” Arthur says. His voice is only quiet, but it’s there. Merlin takes his hand, nudges him closer to the door.

“Go on.”

Arthur takes the key and unlocks the door. He pushes it open, slowly.

Uther’s office is dark. It’s very like its counterpart at home; wooden panelled, a thick carpet, a deep red covering to the desk. The window is small and, when Merlin opens the red curtains, offers a meagre view of the street beyond. The light in the room is a little orange, and the walls loom in. Arthur hates it, hates how small it feels. He sets his hand on the chair in front of the desk.

“Arthur, wait.”

Arthur turns.

“Wrong chair,” Merlin tells him, with a smile.

Arthur looks away, a little embarrassed, with something else sinking into him. Something that pushes him back as he walks towards his father’s chair. Tries to make him run as he sits down. But instead he settles. Takes the pen out of the inkstand and inspects it, carefully. It has Uther’s name engraved on the side, inset into the red enamel in gold paint. Everything is in the family colours, and it strikes Arthur then how much it must all mean to Uther for him to surround himself with reminders of it, the weight of the generations, the reputation, the handed down wealth. It strikes him how closely linked the businesses are to the family in Uther’s mind, how they are intertwined together, perhaps even one and the same. The businesses support the family, and the family runs the businesses. It strikes Arthur how great his undertaking is to keep Uther’s world safe.

“There,” Merlin says, oblivious of Arthur’s thoughts, “You definitely look the part.”

Merlin takes the seat in front of the desk, leaning back in it, comfortable. Arthur feels about as far from that as it is possible to get.

“Well,” Merlin says, “I certainly feel better with you in that chair.”

Arthur smiles, and looks away. Takes a piece of scrap paper and starts to draw patterns with the pen. Nothing like Merlin’s standard.

“So, what will you do now?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur says, “Work, I suppose.”

“No,” Merlin says, “With the company.”

Arthur pauses for a moment, but he doesn’t know what to say.

“Now you have control, you can go ahead with our plan.”

“I don’t know, Merlin. Father isn’t gone, he will be back, and he outlawed it completely.”

“But Arthur, the business is dying. Think how Uther will feel if he comes back to nothing, or if he comes back to Albion Motors flourishing. You can prove him wrong.”

Merlin sounds genuine. Not as if he’s only trying to further himself. He honestly wants to help.

So Arthur thinks for a moment. Thinks of the risk he’d be taking. And then thinks of the look on Uther’s face, the approval that he would finally receive, if he were to produce a profit in the business again. If Albion Motors were to fail, Arthur could only have failed in Uther’s eyes. But if he carries out his and Merlin’s plan, if he brings out new cars, he has a chance to be seen as something worthwhile; a success. And even if Uther doesn’t like it, well, he’ll have saved jobs, saved the wellbeing of his employees; done what’s right. And what can Uther expect of him but that?

“We’ll do it.”

Merlin smiles, slowly, growing into a wide grin. Arthur can’t help but smile with him.

“I knew you’d say yes. I knew you would.”

“Well then. Go down to the engineering department. Make something viable out of your designs. We’ll do this. We’ll save the company.”

Merlin watches Arthur for a moment, and Arthur almost thinks something’s expected of him, or wanted from him. But he doesn’t know what, and it can’t be that important because after a moment Merlin sighs and moves as if to leave.

“Wait,” Arthur tells him, and he sits again, obediently, “Father has a cabinet for special occasions, and I think this deserves a toast.”

Arthur crosses to the window, to the cabinet underneath it, and pours a splash of whiskey into two tumblers. He hands one to Merlin, and clinks them quickly together.

“Cheers, Merlin.”

“Cheers,” Merlin says, and that curious look creeps over his face again, only for Merlin to shrug it off when he downs the whiskey. Arthur takes a little longer with his, stealing glances at Merlin. There’s a little pang in his heart, like something snapping, but he pushes it away. It’s silent, neither of them really knowing what to say, neither really wanting to move.

“Well, I should get on with work,” Arthur says, eventually.

“Thank you,” Merlin says as he gets up, “And you know, if you need me, I’ll just be downstairs with the engineers.”

Arthur doesn’t know why, but the offer makes him freeze for a second. Merlin hovers in the doorway, waiting for Arthur to move.

“Thank you,” he chokes out. Merlin just smiles and leaves him with his files and his work, and his trying not to fixate on the earnest blue of Merlin’s eyes.

\---

Arthur stays late at work, using the evenings to work on familiarising himself better with the rest of the businesses, walled up in Uther’s office. He barely sees Morgana outside work, wolfing down his meals before disappearing into the office for the rest of the evening. She wakes sometimes in the middle of the night to hear him finally slip into bed.

He spends his lunch breaks in Uther’s hospital room, praying to anything listening that he’ll just move. And he never quite stops working in the back of his mind, because maybe if he works hard enough, if he does well enough, Uther might just wake up.

But it can’t last. Arthur can’t keep pushing himself like this, not with the emotional strain as well as the lack of sleep. It’s on Friday that he falls ill.

It’s not a particularly bad illness. Just a bit of a horrid cold. But Morgana takes one look at him over the breakfast table and shakes her head.

“You are not going to work today,” she tells him, “Not on my watch. Eat, then back to bed.”

He can’t very well argue, not when his head feels like cotton wool and he can barely see straight through the sneezing, let alone think. He puts up a token struggle when Morgana frogmarches him back to bed, but settles with a cup of tea and a heap of blankets when she tucks him back in.

“Now,” she says, “Don’t go getting any ideas about coming in around lunchtime. It’s a bad idea, and you don’t want to infect the whole office.”

He smiles when she kisses his forehead and watches her go. He doesn’t hear her leave the house; he’s asleep by then.

Arthur wakes again at the sound of the front door opening. He panics at the thought that he’s slept all day, wriggling to extricate himself from a knot of blankets.

“Morgana?” he croaks out.

“Arthur?” comes a very male voice. Arthur stills and frowns.

“Arthur, it’s Merlin, I brought soup? I can’t find your room.”

“Well keep looking then, Merlin,” he calls. Merlin’s answering laughter is closer than he expects, and then the door opens.

“Soup,” he says, holding out a somehow still-steaming bowl. Arthur lifts himself up and shuffles back to lean against the headboard, reaches out to feed himself only to have Merlin bat his hand away.

“Come on, if Morgana’s right soup will go everywhere unless I do it.”

Arthur rolls his eyes and opens his mouth obediently, swallows the spoonful that Merlin gives him.

“Everything’s fine at work,” he tells Arthur, as if reading his mind, “No emergencies, and the car design is going well. Turns out the engineers don’t need to make that many changes to the chassis, which is always good. Less work, and we can get the models put into production sooner than expected, perhaps.”

Arthur smiles at that. Merlin doesn’t let him get a word in edgeways, putting another spoonful of soup into Arthur’s mouth. 

“I spoke to Mum, too. About Mordred.” Merlin hesitates there, but Arthur just watches. He knows Merlin, knows he won’t stop talking. “I didn’t want to tell you now because of, well, obvious reasons. But I can’t really keep it from you, I just didn’t want to burden you with more-”

He breaks off. Arthur’s laughing, a little. Merlin swats at him.

“I’ll just tell you then, shall I? She says there’s no precedent really, for what you want, but she’s asked a few people and they think there’d be a hearing. You’d need evidence, like a doctor who would swear Morgana was pregnant at the time… you’d need more than that, obviously.”

“But it can be done?”

Merlin starts a little.

“You sound awful,” he says, reaching forward to push a stray lock of hair out of Arthur’s eye, “But yes, with good lawyers and enough evidence, you’ll get him back. And if anyone can, Arthur, it’s you. I’ve seen how you look when you talk about him.”

Arthur smiles a little, drops back against the pillows. Merlin checks his watch and swears.

“I’m going to be late, Arthur, I need to go.”

He drops the soup bowl on the bedside table, flails around for his jacket and the rest of his things. Arthur can’t help but laugh.

“Go on,” he croaks, “Get back to work, you.”

Merlin gives him a little wave from the door before turning to go.

“Thank you,” Arthur tells him. Merlin’s smile fades into something Arthur can’t quite read, something he’s almost sure he’s seen before, but then it’s gone, and so is Merlin.

\---

Arthur supervises Uther’s transferral to the private hospital over the weekend, on edge, waiting for someone to make a mistake. But it goes well, and Arthur is left full of nervous energy that he had no opportunity of expending. He’s overwound like a watch, ticking too quickly, and Morgana sighs with relief when she finds a little hamper on their doorstep filled with scones.

There’s a little envelope with them, and Morgana recognises the handwriting straight away as Elaine’s. She herds Arthur into the conservatory and sits him down, then comes back with plates and jam and cream.

“Do you remember when we used to do this on Sunday afternoons?” she asks Arthur, “When Alice used to make me scones for my dolls’ tea parties and I’d always rope you in.”

Arthur smiles at the memory.

“You’d always say that if you were allowed cake, I should have some too.”

“I was always a very fair person, wasn’t I?” she teases, spooning clotted cream onto her scone and sinking her teeth in. The sound she lets out at the taste is almost a moan.

“You were very practical too, very organised. I used to call Sundays your Little Princess days; you’d wear a pretty dress and tie your hair up nicely, and you’d play with your dolls. The rest of the week you’d charge around and get covered in mud like me.”

“It was because I wanted to impress Uther,” she tells him in a small voice.

“Well, if it’s any consolation, it worked. He always loved you more.” Arthur’s tone is joking, but underneath it there’s conviction, not lost on Morgana.

“Don’t say that. He was harsh on you because he always wanted you better, or safer, or happier.”

“He wanted me to be more like him. He wanted me to stop reminding him of my mother. He always blamed me for her death.”

And Morgana can’t argue with that. No one can argue with a lifetime worth of conditioning, of believing that your worth is less simply because your father can’t show his affection. She was lucky enough to have her parents for the first few years, and that changes things. They don’t really talk about the time before she came, but Morgana suspects that it was nothing but lonely for Arthur.

“I’m sure he didn’t,” is all she tells him, but it’s a token and they both know it. “Besides, think of all the people who care about you now. That has to tell you something, Arthur.”

“They’re not my father.”

Morgana smiles a little at that. Arthur catches it, almost smiles back. Instead he stares out over the garden. It’s sunny, ill-fitting with his mood. It reminds him of the garden party at Lancelot and Elaine’s, and the moment of pure terror opposite Merlin thinking he would never find the words to say.

“We should have them all over, when this is done,” Morgana says, watching the breeze play with the heads of the flowers too, “Say thank you, for all their support.”

Arthur finds himself nodding, and picturing the idea. It’s nice, actually, the thought of them all together, of Arthur and Morgana giving them something back for a change.

He watches ghosts of them, sitting on the lawn on blankets, sipping glasses of wine. Mordred is there in his fantasy, running around after Lancelot’s son, Galahad. Morgana and Elaine sit in the shade with them, catching them if they threaten to run too far away, or to fall from the steps of the bandstand. Lance and Gwaine are there, too, wrapped up in each other, stealing kisses and eating from a shared plate. They’re like a bad romance film in many ways, he thinks.

Merlin’s there, too, chatting to Gwen and watching the toddlers run, a second line of defence for Morgana and Elaine. Arthur watches himself walk out of the conservatory towards them, watches himself stroke over the places where Merlin’s skin stretches over his collarbones. He kisses there, gently, then over his cheek and softly on his lips. And it makes sense, all of a sudden, for him to do that. The rest of the daydream fades, and he sees himself kiss Merlin again. It’s soft, and it feels like closure for everything that twists deep inside him about Merlin. He smiles a little, and he blinks the vision away, because it won’t happen. He has no way of telling what Merlin wants, and they are both expected to kiss girls. There’s too much, too many problems to face, to deal with this one on top of everything.

He sighs, deeply, and turns back to Morgana. She watches him closely, then speaks.

“Arthur. How is everything with Mordred? I know you’ve been busy, but I need to know.”

It’s only with the question that Arthur realises he hasn’t yet told Morgana about the birth certificate, about Merlin’s mother’s ideas. Time’s hurried on without him, and he feels awful for it.

“There’s been a complication,” he tells her, breaking it to her slowly because he knows how badly she’ll take it, “It would be easy if we came forward as the birth parents, but we can’t.”

“Why not?” she asks, “I don’t care about the scandal.”

“Neither do I,” Arthur says, “But that’s not the problem. I found Mordred’s birth certificate, and officially we’re not his parents. He’s registered as Cenred and Morgause’s. We can still get him back, don’t worry, but we will need to find evidence that he’s ours.”

Something passes across Morgana’s face. Arthur doesn’t know why, but it reminds him of when a cloud passes over the sun and a shadow sweeps over the land below. It is almost a darkening, until it’s gone, and Morgana is left looking calm and almost resigned.

“There will be proof,” she says, “And we will save Mordred. It’s just going to take longer than I expected.”

“Exactly! I promised you, and I don’t back down from my promises.”

Arthur is relieved, but as he watches her Morgana’s eyes slide away and focus, far too intently, on her butter knife. He wishes she could accept their situation that easily, but suspects something to come. There’s anger there, and he’s sure Morgana supresses it for him, but unless she confronts it, unless she finds a way to get over it, he knows she will snap. Rail against the situation. As she always has done, and always will do. The problem now is trying to fend off that reaction for as long as possible and guessing when it will occur so he can have some chance of dealing with it. Luckily, with Uther no longer around, he has the freedom to stay close to Morgana and perhaps he can find a way to read her, and to calm her.

But Arthur doesn’t know how she’s changed, in the years she spent all but alone. He doesn’t know the festering anger, balled deep within Morgana and hidden even from herself, black and acrid and seeping through everything she does.

\---

The phone wakes Arthur midmorning the next day. Something’s off; Morgana is an early riser, and she always answers the phone. And yet it rings and rings, continuous, until Arthur can find the effort to drag himself out of bed and walk down the corridor to the phone.

He answers it, still groggy, noting Morgana’s bedroom door wide open. She must be awake then, must be outside where she can’t hear the phone.

The voice on the other end of the line is urgent, and it snaps Arthur awake.

“Mr Pendragon, this is Avalon Healthcare. There’s been some sort of attack on your father, he’s in a critical condition-”

Arthur hears no more, because he slams the phone down and runs to his room to put some clothes on. He searches for Morgana, because she will want to know, will want to see Uther, he’s sure. He calls her name, runs through the house, even the disused corridors, but there’s no response. He can’t see her in the garden, and she doesn’t answer him from there either, so he does what he can and leaves a note for her before driving over.

The hospital seems calm and almost welcoming. It isn’t overtly sterile like state hospitals are, and the windows are thrown open to make the most of the sunlight and the views over the gardens. For the first time Arthur realises just how insecure the place is. There are no security guards, though he would never have previously thought them necessary. There are multiple entrances; those open windows, the main doors, and various sets of French windows. He had thought it quite quaint that the place used to be a small manor house, but now Arthur can’t help but see the climbing ivy as an easy ladder to the upstairs rooms.

He parks on the drive and jogs up the steps to the reception.

“Arthur Pendragon to see my Father, Uther.”

The receptionist takes one look at him and calls over the nearest nurse.

“Elena will take you through.”

The nurse, Elena, is a little scruffy, but that doesn’t concern Arthur. It’s her clumsiness, the way she trips twice on the way to Uther’s room, that worries him for her safety as much as the patients’. She does seem to know what she’s talking about, though, as he finds out quite quickly.

“Your father was only left untreated for a maximum of half an hour this morning. I found him on my rounds; his intravenous tubes had been slashed. It was a simple matter of inserting new ones, and increasing his dosage to make up for what was lost. There has been no permanent damage. But, of course, you would be well within your rights to report the assault and have it investigated by the police.”

They reach Uther’s room as she finishes talking, and all thoughts of the police are wiped from Arthur’s mind by the sight of him, and the need to check his safety.

He looks no different to how he had the day before. Still pale, still drawn. Haunted, Arthur would have said, as if his sleep is filled with nightmares. But no worse, thankfully. He turns back to Elena.

“I will contact the police, I think. Once I get home.”

He goes to leave, but before he can, Elena stops him.

“Don’t forget to sign the visitor’s book before you leave, Mr Pendragon.”

He doesn’t know why he looks, but instead of just signing his name when he reaches the reception desk again, he flips back a page. And just two hours earlier, blatant and unashamed, is Morgana’s signature.

Arthur’s eyes narrow, and he slams the book shut, and he leaves in a storm of confusion and anger.

\---

Morgana is sitting in the conservatory when Arthur returns, her nose in a book, her lilac dress arranged neatly and without a crease. It infuriates him that she can be so calm after causing such destruction, after such anger. She doesn’t appear to notice him as he walks into the room, so he snatches the book from her hands and lets it drop.

She looks up at him, expressionless.

“You worked it out, then.”

“How could you, Morgana? He’s your father too, and he’s acted it for most of your life.”

“A father wouldn’t steal my child. A father wouldn’t have my son registered under someone else’s name just to keep him from me.”

Her voice raises as she speaks, and Arthur has to shout to get through to her.

“He thought he was doing it for our benefit, Morgana. Mordred is the product of incest, after all.”

“Which we didn’t suspect or plan. It was hardly our fault. Instead Uther decided to punish us, and with us Mordred, for his own mistakes.”

“If we’d gone to him earlier, if we’d not snuck around, this would never have happened. We would have ended before we began. And why did we keep it a secret, Morgana? I can’t help but think that part of us knew it was wrong.”

“If he hadn’t kept secrets, if he hadn’t taught us to keep secrets, then we would never have-”

She breaks off mid-sentence. Arthur is fuming, and there’s something about him almost reminiscent of Uther in his eyes, in the set of his jaw.

“There’s no use apportioning blame. It will get us nowhere. Uther did what he thought best for us. Your attack on him doesn’t help you, doesn’t help me, and it certainly doesn’t help him. I know he is not your concern, but I would have expected a thought about your son, about how I would deal with him without you, were you arrested. We were supposed to look out for each other, Morgana. We both promised.”

He speaks quietly so she has to stay quiet to listen, and when he finishes he leaves the room. Morgana, in a moment of tact, doesn’t follow.

\---

There is a morsel of righteousness in Morgana’s indignation, and Arthur has to follow up on it. He locks himself in Uther’s office, and he opens the drawer in his desk. Slowly he pulls out Mordred’s file, careful not to let anything slip out, and careful not to let it fall open before he is ready. He lays it out on his desk, straightens it to postpone the inevitable a little longer. Because he almost can’t bear to look, knowing as he does that the contents of the file will either give him some form of proof, or a lead, to help to prove Mordred’s parentage; or else leave him stranded and lost.

He opens the cover slowly and lingers on the first page. Mordred’s face stares up at him from nine square photographs, each carefully tacked to the paper, ordered by Mordred’s age. They range from his birth to just a few months younger than he was when Arthur and Morgana visited. In the first few he hasn’t yet learnt to smile, but after that each photograph has a clear expression. He frowns down the lens in a few, points at something just off-camera in another. A couple of photographs feature a full-body Mordred, digging for worms in the garden or chasing after one of the dogs. The last has Mordred beaming at the camera, looking almost surprised, exactly like when Arthur met him.

On impulse, he peels the photograph off the paper and folds it into his wallet.

The next page yields no new information, no matter how Arthur looks at it. Just the same names and addresses as before, Morgause and Cenred, no key to how he convinced them to take a child not even their own. So he turns the next page.

It’s not clear exactly what the page is; a few columns of numbers, some initials next to them to remind Uther of their meaning. But they’re suitably cryptic, and Arthur has no idea how to decode them, how to show the world that Uther kept the truth hidden away, bought by his money.

The next page is more obvious, but hints to more than it proves. It’s a receipt of payment for a house; Morgause and Cenred’s address. The deeds are in their name, but the account that the payment is from is one of Uther’s; Arthur knows the number by heart. A good lawyer would argue that Morgause is family, and Uther was only helping her. A loan to be paid back, or a gift to the long lost sister of his ward. It’s evidence, though, and it will all add up. If only Arthur can decipher Uther’s initials and trace the payments on that other slip of paper.

Arthur opens his wallet for a moment, takes a pause to look at Mordred and his whole reason for this work, his reward for disobeying his father so fundamentally. And then he pulls out Uther’s financial record books from the filing cabinet, and he flicks back to the year of Mordred’s birth, and he starts to search for the transactions Uther was referring to. It takes hours, but Arthur is determined. When he finally looks up from the books the world outside the bay window is dark and his stomach is growling, but he has a list of dates and transactions with the names of those involved. He follows the pattern of income and expenditure; a few payments from Cenred King, followed by a few to individuals with names Arthur doesn’t recognise from any of Uther’s businesses, and then repeated again. It’s intriguing, and Arthur doesn’t quite know what to make of it, other than the knowledge that it is very probably not entirely moral. The fact that Uther kept the transactions so blatant is what shocks Arthur, though. The fact that he didn’t try to disguise his selling of a child, try to hide the situation from his conscience by creating a façade over the records he would have to see every day, even if only he would ever set eyes on them.

\---

Merlin knocks on the office door and doesn’t wait for Arthur to answer.

“I’m only here for a couple of minutes, but there’s something I want you to see, if you come down to engineering with me. Morgana said you weren’t busy.”

Arthur barely has time to take in his presence let alone his words before he’s being dragged down the corridor and into the elevator.

“You’re going to love it,” Merlin tells him, “You’re going to be so excited. I’m so excited.”

“I can tell,” Arthur says, dry.

Merlin laughs and bounces a little on the balls of his feet. Arthur smiles almost nervously and watches him in the mirror of the elevator. He wants to put a bottle on Merlin’s energy, keep him always this happy. He’s perfect like this, Arthur thinks. Just the right side of childish. And so beautiful, his smile cutting Arthur through to the core, the way each stretch and tense pulls the fabric of his narrow suit to reveal his body.

And then the elevator stops and Arthur has to avert his eyes before he’s noticed.

Merlin all but springs through the doors onto the floor of the department. It’s open plan, with tables and large pieces of equipment littered about the place, and everything looks more than a little dangerous. Arthur takes a moment to stare at it all. He’s never had occasion to come here before.

“This way, Arthur,” Merlin says, and Arthur sighs at him before following, close to avoid wires and drill bits and stray sheets of wood. They only take a few steps before Merlin stops him.

“Wait; it’s a surprise, so you should close your eyes.”

“Merlin, is that really necessary?” he asks, but he can practically see Merlin’s lower lip trembling, so he shuts them obediently and holds his hands out for Merlin to tug him along. He doesn’t trip once.

“You can open them now,” Merlin tells him. Arthur does, slowly, blinking a little. In front of him is a series of small, but intricate models. The three dimensional versions of Merlin’s creations, complete with details of where the workings will fit. They’re beautiful on their own merit, sleek lines Arthur can almost feel cutting through the air. But they’re also due to save the company and Arthur can’t help but wonder at them for that. A part of them seems so fragile, and Arthur’s stomach twists at the thought that he’s pinned so much on something so brittle, so easily ruined. If they couldn’t save the company, everything would fall apart. But then he looks over at Merlin, at his pride and his confidence, and Arthur’s faith in the plan clicks back into place.

“They’re exactly right,” Arthur says. Merlin beams.

“Are you excited?”

“Very excited,” Arthur tells him, appeasing. But as he speaks he realises that he is smiling almost as widely as Merlin.

“How long until we can put it into production?” he asks.

“Well, Tom, head of engineering, tells me that the designs are just about finalised and the only real project we have yet to do other than prototype testing is the advertising. Now we have the models you can pass them on to Gwaine and he’ll start that going.”

“I want you to work with them,” Arthur tells him, “Do the visuals.”

“Really?” Merlin asks. His eyes almost glow with happiness.

“Your images sold me to the idea. Hell, they are the idea, Merlin. You’re the right man for the job.”

Merlin gives Arthur that look again, the one that he can’t quite interpret. And while Arthur’s staring back at him, more of Merlin’s enthusiasm seems to bridge the gap between them and well up within Arthur. Because the plan is finally coalescing into reality, and it’s theirs, and it holds so much hope with it. Arthur cannot wait for work on the advertisements to begin, so he starts off back towards the elevator. Merlin scurries after him, narrowly avoiding most of the workstations.

“So do we start now?”

“Yes, Merlin, we start now. I’ll have the models sent up to Gwaine’s office, and I’ll brief him on what I’m looking for, and then he’ll probably ask you in for a meeting. But you can start working on images as soon as you get back to your desk.”

They reach the elevator and Arthur presses the call button. The doors open at once, and Arthur steps in, presses the button for their door, and the doors close.

“Thank you, Arthur,” Merlin tells him as the doors shut, and Arthur looks over, “Thank you for having faith in me.”

Merlin has such an earnest look on his face and Arthur can’t quite explain what it does to him. Certainly, it makes him throw caution to the wind, because all he can think of in that moment is every little feature of Merlin’s that he adores, that he wants to explore and number, that he wants to experience every moment of his life. His daydream in the conservatory forces its way to the front of his mind, the idea of an intimacy between them. And Arthur knows he’s not really thinking, but he can’t stop the incline of his head towards Merlin, can’t help but press their lips together, resting over Merlin’s too-full lower lip.

He pulls away a moment later, and his thoughts restart.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking, I should never have-”

Merlin silences Arthur with a firm hand to the back of his neck and a warm press of lips. It doesn’t last long, just enough for Merlin to make his feelings perfectly clear. He pulls away in time for them both to school their faces before the doors open and they are thrown into the office again. Arthur makes straight for his office. He doesn’t want to ignore Merlin, not after that, but then there’s nothing new to say. And the way Arthur’s heart is beating, the way his insides seem to want to clench together with nerves, would make him incoherent anyway.

Once settled in his office he rings through to Morgana.

“Miss LeFay. Tell Mr May I need to see him.”

“Of course, Arthur,” she says, and there’s a little pause, as if she has something else to say. Arthur hangs up the phone before she can.

He takes a pen; avoiding Uther’s enamelled one because he can’t bear to use it. He taps it against the edge of the desk, and waits. When the door opens he starts and his pen flies out of his hand, straight towards Gwaine. Gwaine’s arm snaps out and he catches, then throws it back to Arthur.

“Someone’s on edge,” he says, sitting in front of the desk, “You wanted to see me?”

“More excited than on edge,” Arthur covers, “The new designs are almost finished, I need you to start work on the advertising scheme.”

“Really?” Gwaine asks, “So soon? I’m impressed.”

Arthur ignores him.

“I’m looking for something that shows craftsmanship, that justifies a higher price because it’s British design, you know the sort of thing I mean?”

Gwaine smiles and steals a piece of paper, notes a couple of things down.

“I think I know the sort of thing you’re after.”

Arthur nods, and Gwaine takes it as a dismissal. Arthur panics a little as he stands up, because Gwaine is perceptive and maybe he knows, and Arthur can’t let him tell the whole world, not when he hasn’t even spoken to Merlin about it yet. So he’s not sure why he opens his mouth. The only reason he can think of is to stop free speculation.

“I kissed Merlin,” he blurts.

“Good for you,” Gwaine says, “Finally. If you need any tips, you know, I’m right in my office.”

And then he has the audacity to wink. Arthur could throw another pen at him, but Gwaine leaves before he has the chance.

\---

Arthur has the models sent up to Gwaine’s office, but after that he has a lot of time to think. And his thoughts turn to Merlin, and to the kiss.

It’s wrong. So wrong that it’s illegal. It’s against everything Arthur should be. They could both lose everything for this, and Arthur couldn’t stand it if Merlin were to be imprisoned, to lose his job along with all respect just for Arthur’s deviant feelings, especially were they to fade, or were it not to work out. They need to talk; without doing so they’ll drift into something that neither of them are certain about, or otherwise fade apart, forever to be awkward with each other.

It’s frustrating, because Arthur has other commitments too, and would have liked to spend the evening with them all in the pub, passing around Uther’s note, in the hope that one of them could give some insight into what the initials mean. Because Mordred has to be his first priority; he’s family. And the meaning of the initials may just be the last piece of evidence he needs.

Still, it will have to wait, because Merlin and Arthur’s feelings towards him are urgent. Arthur will fret otherwise.

Arthur leaves the office for a rare excursion, looking in on Gwen’s desk, ignoring Morgana as best he can.

“Miss Smith, you don’t happen to know where Mr Emrys is currently, do you? I need a word.”

“I- I think he’s gone home to work, sir. That’s alright, isn’t it?”

“Of course, I know he works best without the distraction of the office.”

“I do have his phone number though, somewhere,” Gwen says, a little flustered under pressure, “Would that help?”

“It would.” Arthur watches Gwen rifle through sheets of paper in her desk drawer before taking pity on her, “You can send it through to my office when you’ve found it.”

He retreats back to his desk, hearing her sigh of relief as he moves away. There’s not long to wait for the number once Gwen feels less under pressure; she raps on his door only a little after he’s settled to doodle on the back of an old report.

“The number, Mr Pendragon,” she says, slips a memo onto the desk and hurries out, hobbled a little by her skirt. Arthur smiles after her and dials the number.

Merlin doesn’t pick up the first time Arthur calls, but he does the second, on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Merlin? It’s Arthur.”

“Oh,” Merlin pauses for a moment, and then there’s the sound of something being knocked over. “Shit, shit. Oh, it can wait.”

Arthur laughs and waits for him to calm down, as if his heart isn’t trying to beat its way out of his chest.

“Sorry I didn’t pick up, it’s just I have this policy when I’m working, if it’s urgent they’ll call back, means I don’t get disturbed by Mum wanting a catch-up at all hours- anyway, I’m rambling and I-”

“It’s alright,” Arthur interjects, the second hand embarrassment getting a little too much, “It’s fine. Listen, Merlin, we need to talk.”

“About earlier?”

There’s almost a tremor in Merlin’s voice, and Arthur hastens to reassure him.

“Not a bad talk, don’t worry. Just, we need to work a few things out, and I was thinking my house? After dinner, seven-ish?”

“Yeah, yeah I can do that.”

“You know where I live?”

“I know where you live.”

“Good, so you’ll come?”

“I’ll come, Arthur.”

“And I’ll see you then. Right.”

Neither of them makes any move to hang up for a few breaths.

“So I’ll see you then,” Arthur says at last. “And I’ll let you get on with work.”

“I’ll see you later,” Merlin breathes, and Arthur just catches it before he hangs up.

\---

They were on the way to the cinema when Arthur saw them. They had to be around twenty, the two men, and they were standing in a doorway, hugging. Arthur knew what Uther would say about that. He’d ranted on about it over dinner time and time again. Arthur knew what he was expected to think and to say, so he did.

“Dirty faggots,” he muttered, under his breath.

Morgana heard and stopped dead in the middle of the street. Something about her sharpened.

“What did you just say?”

Arthur watches the men walk into the building. Anything but looking at Morgana. He looks up to her, and he knows from her reaction that he must have done something wrong. He doesn’t want to displease her, almost as much as he doesn’t want to displease his father. He doesn’t want to tell her what he said, because he knows she heard clearly, and he knows she has an objection to his words. He knows she’s going to hate him for it, but he can’t run and hide so he has to speak.

“I called them dirty faggots.”

“On what evidence?” Morgana asks, voice low.

“They were hugging.” Arthur didn’t even try for defensive. Morgana was barely a year older but so much more mature, and she was endlessly capable of lecturing him into shame.

“That’s no evidence. And besides, even if they were, would you judge a person for who they love? Is that right to do, Arthur? When you know how precious love is?”

The last part cut, but Arthur understood what Morgana was saying. Uther showed his affections so rarely, he would do anything for just a small token. Arthur couldn’t really blame anyone for how they found love, not when he valued it as highly as he did.

“I didn’t really think,” Arthur said, looking away, ready for Morgana to deny him the trip to the cinema in punishment.

“No, you didn’t,” Morgana said, but her voice was soft again, and all seemed forgiven, “But you are thinking now, so that’s good. And you will keep thinking, Arthur. You owe it to the world.”

\---

Arthur remains silent throughout dinner. Morgana steals glances at him, but Arthur doesn’t rise to them. He’s still angry at her, though he understands why she did what she did. He’s just not ready for them to talk yet.

Dessert is being served when Morgana takes a deep breath, ready to speak. Arthur just raises his head and glares. She lets go of the air.

It’s only a few spoonfuls later when the doorbell rings. Arthur leaves his meringue to let Merlin in.

“Hello,” Merlin says, watching him awkwardly. He’s still wearing his suit from work, but without a tie, and a cardigan replacing the jacket. It clings to him somewhat. The undone buttons of his shirt reveal long, pale throat, and the shadows under his collarbones. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

“Come in,” Arthur says, and clears his throat, closing the door, “Would you like a drink?”

“A drink would be great,” Merlin says, so Arthur leads him through to the living room and the drinks cabinet.

“Will whisky do?”

Merlin nods, and takes his drink when it’s offered. Arthur downs his, then turns back to the cabinet for another.

There is the click of Merlin placing his glass down and the next thing Arthur knows there’s a warmth against his back and Merlin’s arms snaking around his stomach. He leans back into it, sighs, content. Merlin’s lips brush over his neck, and Arthur can’t remember if he’s ever felt so good, so safe, so at home.

“Wait,” Arthur says, soft and without power, “We need to be sure about this.”

“I’m sure,” Merlin says, “I’m certain.”

“Are you?” Arthur asks, “It’s wrong, Merlin, it’s illegal. If we were found-”

“I know, Arthur. But it’s not wrong, and we won’t be found. Look at Lance and Gwaine.”

Arthur turns abruptly, but Merlin keeps his grip.

“Lancelot is married, it distracts attention.”

“But they’re all over each other, Arthur, and you’re more careful than that! We can’t give this up, Arthur. We can’t.”

With that, he leans forward to kiss Arthur. Arthur doesn’t move to stop him, and when Merlin’s lips move and brush over his, Arthur can’t help but kiss back, reaching out to hold him.

“We’ll be careful,” Merlin says, “And you can stop telling me it’s wrong when you want it this much.”

Arthur feels the truth of Merlin’s words but doesn’t know a way to acknowledge it, not yet, so he kisses him. It’s agreement enough as he pulls Merlin down onto the sofa to sit in his lap, licks his mouth open slowly and gently. It’s a little overwhelming, how different Merlin feels to a girl, how much sharper and harder he feels, how different he tastes to any mouth Arthur’s ever kissed before. It’s almost feels like a completion, and the feeling frightens Arthur in its intensity, so much that he has to pull away just to breathe. He stares at Merlin, wide-eyed.

“Do you feel it too?” Merlin asks, to no response. He slips his hands up Arthur’s neck and into his hair.

“Come here,” he says, and pulls Arthur’s head to his chest. There, Arthur can feel Merlin’s heartbeat, can feel the gentle rise and fall of his chest, can smell the soft, crisp scent of his washing detergent, overlayed by the deep musk of him.

“There,” Merlin murmurs, “No panicking.”

Arthur tugs his head away a little and Merlin lets him go, knows what Arthur wants. He leans up for another kiss and Merlin takes it gladly, letting Arthur brush against his lips until he has calmed enough to suck one in. Merlin gasps, then groans when Arthur does it again. He licks over Arthur’s lips, then against his tongue, and Arthur moans, pulling him closer.

They carry on like that until the creaking of the pipes starts Arthur out of the kiss.

“What is it?” Merlin asks, looking around them.

“It’s the water,” Arthur explains, “Morgana must be going to bed. It’s later than I thought.”

“Oh.” Merlin looks at Arthur regretfully, and shuffles a little away, “I should be going, then.”

“No, no, it’s dark. You could stay.”

Merlin eyes him sidelong.

“Arthur, isn’t that getting a little ahead?”

“No, I meant there are plenty of guestrooms. Or you could stay in my bed if you like and I could lend you pyjamas? We could cuddle.”

Merlin laughs.

“I never thought I’d hear Arthur Pendragon say the word _cuddle_.”

Arthur tickles him a little in retribution. Merlin squirms and almost falls off the sofa.

“What do you say, then, Merlin?”

“Yeah,” he tells Arthur, softly and with his smile still from laughing, “I’ll stay.”

Arthur leads him upstairs, finds him a clean pair of pyjamas, blue to match his eyes. He shows Merlin to one of the many bathrooms to change in privacy, and then he dives into his bedroom to start tidying, throwing clothes left on the floor into the wardrobe, making the bed, fluffing pillows. Merlin walks in when he’s one arm into his pyjama shirt, and Arthur freezes.

The top hangs off Merlin’s frame loosely, and he’s had to roll over the top of the trousers to create a makeshift belt to keep them up. They cling to his hipbones. It would almost be ridiculous, but it’s Merlin, and somehow because of that it’s beautiful and perfect.

“They don’t quite fit,” Merlin says, regretfully. Arthur smiles and breaks out of his trance, pulls the shirt on properly and heads over to Merlin.

“They’re fine, they look good.” Arthur’s chest feels strange. When he watches Merlin he feels almost possessive; they’re his clothes, on his Merlin.

“Yeah?”

“Well, clothes hang off you anyway, just shows what a skinny bastard you are.”

Merlin smiles and shrugs. Arthur watches the way it makes the fabric shift and ripple. He reaches out, pushing past the curtain of it to press his palm against Merlin’s ribcage. He strokes his thumb against the softness, watches the movement of the cloth. Merlin sighs. They both glance up and, together, close the distance between them to kiss again.

“We need to sleep,” Arthur mumbles, trying to talk through a mouth full of Merlin.

“Bed,” Merlin mutters back, and he takes hold of Arthur’s hips and pulls him back towards it. When his calves hit the bed he drops to sit, pulling Arthur with him to kneel over him. They kiss again, soft, then settle to lie down, facing each other. Arthur pulls the covers up, making sure Merlin’s tucked in, then turns off the light. They watch each other in the half dark. Slowly, Arthur inches his hand over to find Merlin’s.

“So how do we do this?” Merlin asks.

“Well, I’d expect we’d get a little closer.” Merlin smiles at that and shuffles over, squeezing Arthur’s hand.

“And now?”

“Well,” Arthur tells him, “Now I think I’d hold you.”

With his free hand, Arthur pulls Merlin in closer, tucks his arm around Merlin’s waist. Merlin rests his head on Arthur’s shoulder and wraps his arm across Arthur’s back to his other shoulder. He tries to curl up, only for Arthur’s knees to get in the way. Arthur smiles at that and tangles their legs. Merlin sighs softly, and they both close their eyes.

It’s strange, Arthur thinks, to fall asleep with the sound of someone else’s breathing. But he’s so warm, so content, that it is easy to do.

\---

Arthur wakes up to his alarm blaring and, for the first time in months, he turns it off to curl back up in bed. It’s only at the sound of his voice that Arthur realises who he’s snuggling into.

“Shit,” Merlin groans, “Work. I’ll have to work from home at least this morning, can’t turn up in yesterday’s suit.”

“Stop talking,” Arthur tells him, thudding his head down onto Merlin’s chest.

“Ow!”

Merlin pushes him away, and there’s a brief tussle, ending only when Arthur pins Merlin’s hands and claims his lips as a prize.

“Ugh, get off,” Merlin tells him, “Get ready for work.”

“Just a little bit longer,” Arthur says. Merlin allows him another kiss before batting him off. Admittedly quite a long kiss, but Arthur pouts at him nonetheless.

“Work, Mr Boss Man, you do actually have to turn up for it. Being, you know, in charge.”

Arthur pulls himself out of bed with a deep sigh. Merlin follows him with significantly more energy.

“Breakfast?” Arthur asks, and turns to Merlin for his answer.

“That would be lovely,” Merlin says. Arthur’s eyes rake over him, and he’s just as beautiful in the morning as he was the night before, if not more. His hair is ruffled in every direction, and Arthur reaches over to brush his fingers through it and tame it a little. Merlin smiles in return, and does the same for Arthur. Neither of them can tell who moves, but it merges, somehow, into another kiss, soft and warm. Merlin’s fingers curl tight into Arthur’s hair when he licks into Merlin’s mouth, and it’s about as perfect as it gets.

They head down for breakfast when Merlin’s stomach breaks the kiss by growling. Morgana has made the tactful decision not to be there, so Arthur gets to feed Merlin bacon sandwiches and toast with jam and boiled eggs and soldiers without interruption. And feed he does, because Merlin’s so thin, so fragile, each of his joints protruding out, and Arthur needs to get some weight on him, some cushioning, some something; until Merlin has to wave him away before he bursts. He smiles at Arthur him fondly, kisses him when they’re done and gets up, ready to leave.

“You’re going?” Arthur asks.

“Well, I have to stop distracting you.”

There’s another kiss, and then Merlin pulls away. Puts actual distance between them.

“We should do something,” Arthur says, “Later.”

“Lunch?”

“I’m visiting Father, but we can do dinner. Here. Bring a change of clothes?”

Merlin smiles over at Arthur, almost shyly.

“I will.”

\---

Arthur doesn’t know how he gets there, but somehow he does. His face red with mortification at Gwaine sitting on his desk, explaining homosexual sex with sketches and hand gestures.

“But basically, what I’m saying is you’ll want to start small. Hands are good, mouths are better, but don’t try to push it too far or, believe me, neither of you will have a good time. The whole gag reflex thing will get there, don’t rush it.”

Arthur covers his ears with his hands and stares at the bright colours of Gwaine’s shirt, even though he knows that’s never going to make it go away. Gwaine just laughs at him.

“Do you ever shut up?”

“Nope,” Gwaine says, “So if and when you do go for the fucking, you’ve got to make sure whoever’s on the receiving end is good and ready. Trust me, it hurts like hell otherwise. Plenty of oil, lots of fingers, like I told you.”

Gwaine holds two fingers up and wiggles them, teasingly. Arthur drops his head to the desk.

“You’ll have fun,” he tells Arthur, grinning and patting his head, “You’ll love it.”

Arthur lifts his head only enough to lift the phone.

“Morgana, get Gwaine out of my office.”

She recognises something in his voice, knows somehow that this is the moment of forgiveness.

“Right you are, Arthur,” and moments after the office door opens for Morgana. She takes Gwaine by the arm and tugs. He doesn’t try to resist; he’s told Arthur all he needs to know anyway. She herds him out, threatening with sharp heels.

When Gwaine has left she stands in the doorway for a moment. Arthur looks up at her, and something passes between them.

“Will you come with me to see Father with me at lunch?” he asks. It’s on a whim, but one that feels right.

“Yes,” Morgana says, “Alright.”

\---

Arthur stops the car outside a little sandwich shop and lets Morgana out to buy them lunch.

“I got you egg and cress,” she says as she slips back into the car, two paper bags clutched in her hands, “I know you like egg and cress.”

“I do,” Arthur tells her, and Morgana smiles with relief.

The drive from there to the hospital is short, and they make it in silence. The receptionist knows Arthur’s face and waves them through. In Uther’s room Arthur takes his usual seat and squeezes Uther’s hand.

“It’s all going well, Father,” he says, “You don’t need to worry, everything is in hand.”

Morgana stays quiet for a moment, watching them. After a while, Arthur turns to her.

“I don’t know what to do,” she confesses.

“Just talk to him. The first things that come to mind.”

Morgana sits for a moment, and then she finds it.

“I am sorry about what I tried to do to you, Uther, but I- It’s just you took my son. And you made it so difficult, and you must know what being a parent is like since you have us, so it wasn’t ignorance.”

Her voice builds, and Arthur can tell she’s working up to a shouting match with a man who cannot react. It takes a sharp look from him to stop her talking. There’s plenty more she wants to say, but Arthur is proud of her temperance when she ignores the need.

She takes a moment to breathe, then continues.

“Anyway. We will get him back. And I hope you’ll understand. But we’re not going to stop, no matter what.”

She falls silent after that. Arthur’s gaze slips from her, gazing at the pattern on the bedsheets.

“Sandwiches?” Morgana asks, abruptly.

“Yeah,” he says, and she pulls out the paper bags.

\---

Arthur gets in to find Merlin and Morgana sitting on the sofa together with a glass of wine each. They’re laughing at a joke he missed, and he feels almost out of place. That is, until Merlin looks up at him standing in the doorway, and the laughter dies, replaced by a fond smile and soft eyes.

“Bye, Morgana,” he says as he walks across the room towards Arthur. He takes Arthur’s free hand – the other occupied by a carrier bag – and he squeezes it, and he kisses Arthur.

“Missed you.”

“It’s barely been a day, Merlin.”

“I still missed you,” he says.

They behave throughout dinner, chatting about things of no importance. The news, the charts, Merlin’s fashion sense. Arthur claims to deem it appalling, and Merlin only splutters and fails to defend it. But after dinner something in Merlin changes. He takes a long look at Arthur, and his pupils blow, and he tugs him up to his bedroom.

Arthur takes a seat on the bed and beckons to Merlin. He goes willingly to sit astride his lap. Arthur kisses him, slowly, licking over Merlin’s lips until he gasps them open. Arthur pulls back a little and watches Merlin for a moment. He’s a little wonderful, with his excitement and his enthusiasm and his beautiful, beautiful blue eyes. Not to mention the way his hands stroke slowly over Arthur’s chest, his stomach, his hips, altogether managing to be very distracting.

“I spoke to Gwaine,” Arthur says, “Or rather, Gwaine spoke to me. At length. About the mechanics of these things.”

Merlin laughs a little.

“That sounds very like Gwaine.”

Arthur smiles, but perseveres.

“I was wondering if you wanted to try something? Something simple.”

“Kiss me, Arthur,” Merlin says. Arthur leans in to do so, then pauses.

“Wait, was that a yes?”

Merlin rolls his eyes.

“Yes, Arthur, now kiss me and take my clothes off and get on with it.”

Arthur doesn’t need to be told again; he leans in close and sucks Merlin’s lower lip into his mouth. Merlin groans and fists his hands in Arthur’s hair, bites lightly at Arthur’s lip and soothes over it with his tongue. Arthur undoes the first few buttons of his shirt and slips his fingers under. It takes a while; they stay slow and the kiss is too nice to stop, but they lose their clothes, coming to lie beside each other on the bed. Arthur reaches out, strokes Merlin’s hair, and kisses him softer than before. Merlin reaches for his shoulders and pulls him closer, so Arthur rolls over him. They watch each other like that for a while, Arthur looking down at Merlin and Merlin looking up, each a little overwhelmed, until Merlin leans in to kiss Arthur. They close the distance between them then, legs slotted together. Arthur licks his lips and Merlin lets them fall open, rolls his hips into Arthur’s.

They both groan at that, so Arthur returns the gesture. It’s good, so he reaches down, lifts Merlin’s hips and pulls his underwear down. Wriggles out of his own and rolls his hips again. Merlin’s head drops back at that and Arthur leans in, kisses the stretched length of his neck, scrapes his teeth along the ligament. Merlin’s hands snatch into Arthur’s hair, clutching at it. His legs fall further apart, and one wraps around both of Arthur’s, ankle resting on the underside of Arthur’s knee. It feels utterly amazing to Arthur, to be that close to something so terribly gorgeous, and still to be needed. He stares, and he rolls his hips, and he near whimpers at the sheer onslaught of pleasure that it brings. Merlin is hard and soft at the same time, and he tugs at Arthur. They hit a rhythm, Arthur gasping into Merlin’s neck.

They come like that, wrapped up together and messy with the aftermath of kissing and closeness. For a while they are still, breathing together, chests heaving. Then Merlin shifts underneath Arthur until Arthur moves. He finds his underwear on the floor and uses them to clean first Merlin then himself. Afterwards, he slips down to lie next to Merlin, tucking them both in. Merlin shuffles closer, and they hold each other.

“That was nice,” Merlin murmurs into his ear.

“Perhaps Gwaine does have his uses.” Arthur can feel Merlin smile against him, and pulls him a little closer still.

\---

Lancelot walks into Arthur’s office, trailing an almost pouting Gwaine behind him. He directs Gwaine to sit in the visitor’s chair and leans against the back of it himself, arms folded, careful not to let Gwaine look at him.

“Gwaine told me about the inappropriate conversation he felt the need to begin with you yesterday, Arthur. He’s come to apologise.”

“I’m sorry, Arthur. It was inappropriate for the workplace.” His voice is flat as if his words were learnt by rote. Arthur pushes his work away and takes a long look at Gwaine. Gwaine flashes him a grin.

“Actually, the conversation helped significantly last night. I’m glad you explained things to me.”

“Anyone could have been listening!” Lance says, outraged, and Arthur glances up at him. Ordinarily that thought would frighten him, beyond anything else. Ordinarily, he would all but have Gwaine’s head for putting them in danger. But Arthur isn’t his usual self. He feels content, and a little unstoppable. He gives Gwaine a hard stare, though. Gwaine doesn’t flinch, just flicks his hair away from his face and fixes Arthur with a look.

“That’s true,” Arthur says eventually, “But they weren’t, and I trust that Gwaine made sure of that before he ever opened his mouth.”

Lancelot loses some of his tension and his hand drifts from the top of the chair to play with Gwaine’s hair. Gwaine smiles and looks up at him, content.

“I know,” Lance sighs, “But I don’t want anyone getting hurt, and it was reckless.”

The last is clearly directed at Gwaine, who turns in the seat and takes Lance’s hand.

“I will be safe, you know. I can manage it. I’m more careful than you think.”

They don’t dare kiss properly, not in Arthur’s office where the glass in the door is admittedly frosted but still a dangerous window to the outside world. So Lance pulls Gwaine’s hand to his lips and brushes it across them.

“You’d better be,” Lance says, but there’s no bite to it.

Arthur watches them, and he can’t wait for the evening when he and Merlin can be that close. Though he has something to deal with before he can lose himself in Merlin again. Something hopefully involving the resolution of his confusion over Uther’s note.

Arthur pulls out the note and hands it over to Gwaine.

“What’s this?” he asks, studying the paper.

“I found it in Father’s folder about Mordred. It relates to how he convinced Morgause and Cenred to take Mordred, I’m sure.”

Gwaine narrows his eyes at the paper and frowns. Lance leans down to look over his shoulder.

“LSD…” he murmurs.

“That’s Acid,” Gwaine says. “Arthur, he’s been buying drugs for them to sell on. That’s how he did it; he set them up in business.”

\---

Arthur sits in his father’s office, secluded away from the rest of the house, and stares at the note. The shapes of the letters blur into each other until he can’t focus his mind, let alone his eyes. Images of his father in dark alleys, handing rolls of money over to a shabby man with a dog flash through his mind, and though he knows that Uther would have found a better, safer, less visible way to buy what he needed, the thoughts won’t leave.

For all his adult life, Arthur has known his father to be less than perfect. But even through the fight to gain custody of his son, even through every revelation about his father and the lengths he was willing to go to, Arthur never doubted his pure motivations. Uther’s priorities may have been questionable, but never the underlying sentiment. He wanted to keep his children safe, despite the harm that doing so would cause their son. And, to a certain extent, the end justified the means.

But Uther had always been against drugs of all kinds. Medicine made him suspicious, let alone recreational drugs. Gaius was always the only doctor allowed anywhere near the family because he was the only one Uther would trust to know what he was doing. And now, to find out that Uther had had a part in the distribution of his hated drugs, that knowing the harm they could cause he would still inflict them on others – well, the thought horrifies Arthur. The two visions of his father are irreconcilable.

And still, there is another nagging thought that Arthur can’t ignore. Worse even than the knowledge that his father was never as honourable as he had supposed, that he had defended his father when Morgana had been more right than Arthur would have liked to think. It’s the knowledge that if he uses this as evidence, even in a trial over custody, it will get out. And Uther’s reputation will be ruined forever. The very thing he wanted to protect; his image, would be ruined by Arthur’s actions. Especially because Uther is not in a state to refute the claims, or to defend himself. Not even to Arthur. And Uther would never forgive him.

So he stares at the note. And he could pick up the phone to call Merlin’s mother, but he can’t quite bring himself to.

The door to the study opens slowly. Arthur doesn’t notice it until Merlin clears his throat. His head snaps up, he drops the paper, and he breaks into a smile.

“Merlin! Is it really that late?”

“It is,” Merlin says, and he crosses over the desk to lean across it and pull Arthur into a kiss, “You haven’t eaten, have you?”

Arthur shakes his head.

“You work too hard,” he says, fond all the same. And he takes Arthur’s hand to tug him downstairs.

“Which way to the kitchen?” he asks Arthur.

“Oh, cook will have left my dinner in the dining room. Have you eaten?”

Merlin smiles and nods.

“Somehow I knew you’d need three days’ notice of me wanting to eat with you.”

Arthur is about to open his mouth to tell Merlin that it’s not like that, that they would be able to improvise, when he realises that it’s actually closer to the truth than he’d like to admit. Arthur has lived this way for his whole life and all his school friends, and most of his University friends, have done too. It’s a shock to realise how much it’s affected him. He must not hide the thought as well as he wants because Merlin smiles softly at him, kisses him, soothing.

“Come on, eat your dinner, then I can stop mothering you.”

Merlin natters on about his day, about the progress they’re making with the advertising, the billboards they’re developing, but Arthur can’t help thinking about his own day and the many sides of Uther Pendragon. He nods in the appropriate places in the conversation, but burning into his mind like an after-image is the contrast between the Uther he should have suspected existed, capable of denying his own moral standards for the sake of the family; and the Uther that exists now, cold and limp and somewhere else entirely. He wants to be angry, but the feeling just won’t come. All he feels is that it’s unjust, in a blank way, a numb way.

Arthur doesn’t know if Merlin senses that something’s wrong, or if it’s just luck, but when he finishes eating Merlin pulls him straight away from the table and upstairs, stands in Arthur’s bedroom and kisses him. It’s the perfect distraction – Merlin’s mouth is still new and it’s warm and wet and smooth against Arthur’s tongue. His hands are wonderful, slipping Arthur out of his clothes and making him moan in the best places. Arthur returns the favour, and steps back until he has to sit, then lie, on the bed.

“I did some research,” Merlin tells him, one half of his face bathed in the light from the hall, the other dark and shadowed. Arthur strokes where the darkness collects beneath Merlin’s cheekbone. “Not much, but enough. And I know what I want. I want you to fuck me, Arthur.”

Arthur stills and his eyes widen. If he’s to be completely honest, he isn’t sure he is ready himself. He knows it would be good. He isn’t a stranger to sex, after all. But he knows that Merlin is, at least with men. And he also knows how easily he could hurt Merlin. But Merlin is watching him with big, earnest eyes, and he knows he will not be able to dissuade him. If he were to say no, all he would give Merlin would be disappointment, and he’d ask again the next time they were together, and the next, and over again.

“We will have to be careful,” Arthur tells him with resolve, “No getting ahead of yourself, no deciding you’re ready before it’s true.”

Merlin nods eagerly, and reaches forward to kiss Arthur. For a moment Arthur thinks to check him, to warn him over again, but he knows that it would help nothing. Merlin’s eyes are bright, and his hands clutch at Arthur, and he will listen to nothing from now on.

Arthur returns the kiss, but he does nothing more than that. Not yet. It’s going to be a strange experience for them both, and Arthur is worried for himself as well as Merlin. If this goes wrong, then surely there will be embarrassment and they’ll fall apart. And Arthur knows it will fail if there isn’t enough need between them. But it isn’t long before Merlin starts to shift, starts to open his legs for Arthur. It’s breathtaking to see Merlin bared like that, stretches of pale skin and sharp angles, to feel his body language open. Arthur leans in to press kisses to his skin, to taste him, to suck kisses into his skin. He can’t seem to stop, but when his hips rock into the cradle of Merlin’s he forces himself to. He draws back a little, and Merlin watches him, shocked and perhaps a little afraid.

“I’m not leaving,” Arthur tells him, “I just have to get something.”

Merlin frowns at the bottle of oil when Arthur brings it over.

“If you want this,” Arthur says, frowning back, “You’re going to have to trust me.”

Merlin nods.

“I do.”

A knot forms in Arthur’s throat at Merlin’s earnestness but he still unscrews the bottle and pours a little out. It smells a little of lavender and Merlin laughs at that, silenced when Arthur leans in to kiss him. Arthur spreads the oil over his fingers, then brings his hands down to Merlin, to caress the join between arse and thigh, slowly moving higher. Merlin sighs into his mouth, cutting off into a gasp when Arthur pushes in. Just the first knuckle, but Merlin freezes.

“Do you want me to stop?” Arthur asks him, “Does it hurt?”

“No,” Merlin says, slowly, “It’s just strange.”

It’s strange for Arthur too, warm and so very tight. Arthur slides a little deeper, curling his finger as he does. Merlin groans, and his legs fall open. Arthur’s eyes snap up to his face, and he smiles. Gwaine was right about it, then.

He adds another finger, carefully, and keeps stretching Merlin until he’s spread wide on the bed, back arching into a desperate line. Arthur pulls back to get himself ready, but Merlin has taken the bottle of oil. He guesses what is meant to happen, and covers his hand in oil, reaching out for Arthur. He slicks him up, then pulls him close. They kiss, soft, until Arthur pushes inside. They both stop then, and their eyes lock. There’s a moment of stillness, until Merlin wraps a calf around Arthur’s leg and pulls him in closer, takes hold of his jaw and kisses him, deep and a little desperate, clutching at him to get closer.

They find a rhythm, deep and searching, though it doesn’t last long until Arthur comes, dropping his head to Merlin’s chest until he catches his breath and can stroke Merlin until he comes.

\---

They wake to the sound of the alarm, shrill and insistent. Arthur groans and turns it off, pulling the covers back over his head to hide from the day. He hasn’t slept well, filled with thoughts of his father. Merlin laughs a little at him, and burrows under the covers to kiss him. The morning light glows through the sheets, and Merlin draws back to look at Arthur, frowning at the worry lines over his face. Merlin reaches out a hand to straighten them out, and sighs.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, Arthur?”

He’s silent for a moment, then takes Merlin’s hand from his face and holds it.

“My father didn’t just give Mordred away. He bought Cenred and Morgause a house, and he-” Arthur breaks off and gathers himself before he can continue. It’s hard, admitting the truth to someone else. Speaking of facts that Arthur wants so much to just erase.

“He bought drugs on Cenred’s behalf for him to sell on.”

Merlin doesn’t speak, just squeezes Arthur’s hand tight. He seems to understand what Arthur needs; just for him to be there, not to rant and rail against Uther on his behalf.

“Arthur, love,” he says, soft and quiet, and he shuffles over to press in close.

\---

Even after a week of worry punctuated by Merlin and the all too distracting sex he has not come to a decision. He proves his father’s guilt without a doubt, tracing the names and details in his account book to disgraced chemists and council flats. Leon uses his contacts in the police to confirm that the men Uther paid are suspected drug dealers. But he doesn’t tell Leon why he asks for his research. His decision must be his own. He doesn’t want to be influenced by others’ expectation.

Despite the evidence Arthur still cannot quite bring himself to condemn his father, his defenceless father, to ruin. After all, everything he has done with the company has been to please Uther when he wakes; to find that Arthur practically staged a takeover of the business empire by showing Uther’s guilt would cause an irreparable rift between them. But if he doesn’t use the evidence, Arthur will never be able to raise his own son.

He invites all his friends to his house for a dinner party of sorts. They have helped him before, and he thinks that if he has them all together, if he can see them all around him, then perhaps he can feel he has the support to decide one way or the other. Not to influence him, but to stand behind him, to give him courage.

And, seated around the dining table, listening to the rise and fall of conversation around him, Arthur knows he would lose nothing by destroying the evidence and forgetting about it entirely. Except that isn’t quite true. He would lose all chance of knowing Mordred. And, perhaps worse even than that, he would lose who he is. Admitting Uther’s guilt enough to present evidence against him will lose him his father, but even that’s a small price to pay compared to losing everything that he is; inherently good, honest, and true to his responsibilities – true to his son.

He knows, deep down, even though the surface of his mind doubts, that the people that surround him would not leave him, even if his father does. And, Arthur thinks, that will have to be enough.

He taps the handle of his fork against his glass to get everyone’s attention, but doesn’t stand.

“I’ve invited you all here to tell you that tomorrow I will put forward mine and Morgana’s claim as Mordred’s parents. The evidence I use will ruin Father, but we have to have our son.”

There’s a moment where the news begins to sink in, when no one talks and Arthur begins to doubt his conviction. It’s just long enough that he can mistake their silence for disapproval, horror even, and he sees every flaw and crack in his plan, and he hates it, hates himself for it, for the damage he will cause.

But then Morgana breaks into a smile, and claps her hands together. Next to her, Merlin joins, and within moments the table is applauding Arthur. He watches them closely, and even though he is no judge of faces, all he can see is approval and perhaps even pride.

Gwen leans towards him, smiling as the clapping stops.

“Where will you put him? Do you have a cot?”

“Oh, he’ll want something bigger than a cot at his age,” Elaine replies, and just like that the conversation moves. Arthur doesn’t follow it too closely. All he can think of are the little looks Merlin keeps shooting him and the future with his son; the house animated again by squeals of a child. It would be nice for someone to find happiness in the empty cold, he thinks, and as he watches the others he thinks he sees the certainty of it.

\---

Arthur calls Merlin’s mother the next morning, hands steady despite his worries. For all his confidence last night, anything could happen. He is certain that Mordred will be taken out of Morgause and Cenred’s dubious care, but he knows that his evidence is debatable. Gaius, though a doctor, has known the family for years. People will think him bribed. And the matter of the payment; well, Morgause is family. The house, and even the drugs, are unlikely gifts but the money is of no consequence to someone as rich as Uther.

Really, when it comes down to it, the decision will come down to the persuasion of the lawyers involved. Arthur knows he will hate to hand everything over, to take it out of his control, but he is not the right person for the job. He only hopes he will be able to find a man good enough.

“Is this Mrs Emrys?” Arthur asks, when she picks up, “This is Arthur Pendragon, your son may have mentioned me.”

“He did, Mr Pendragon, but I cannot use his unofficial words at work. You have to tell me yourself.”

Arthur was expecting this. He knows bureaucracy well from Leon. He takes a deep, steadying breath, and lets it out slowly as he speaks.

“I would like to report the neglect of a child. And the incorrect registry of his birth.”

“Could you tell me the child’s name?” she asks, kind and gentle and not at all intrusive.

“He is Mordred Pendragon, though the name he has now is Mordred King. His registered parents are Cenred and Morgause King, though Morgana LeFay and I are his true parents.”

Arthur reads off the address, and there is a pause while Merlin’s mother notes down the details. Arthur can hear her pen scratching on the other end of the line.

“Thank you, Mr Pendragon,” she says, “I will process the details, and pass the case on to my superiors. I should be able to call you back within the week.”

Arthur puts the handset down carefully. Then he gets up, tucks his chair in, and walks away from the phone.

\---

Another week goes by, quietly. At least, that is how Arthur feels it. The business is working on overdrive, testing prototypes of the new cars before they can go into full production, preparing the marketing campaign. Arthur is ushered into meeting after meeting, and he listens at the time, he really does, but looking back on it all it blurs into a haze of cars and sales and regulations and the excitement of his colleagues.

But not Arthur. It’s not that he’s not pleased the cars are coming along, are so close to going into production. It’s that he feels as if he’s in a mental waiting room. Everything but news of Mordred can only be a distraction. There’s nothing he can do, not until he hears back from Merlin’s mother, but he devotes a part of himself to Mordred anyway. A part of him that sits, constant, tapping its fingernails against the arms of the chair, humming away to itself and staring into empty space. Waiting for the call.

It’s unexpected when it comes. It’s a Saturday, out of anyone’s office hours, and Arthur and Merlin have the run of the house with Morgana visiting Lancelot’s wife. She’s taken to doing that, to going to Elaine for practice at holding a child, for tips on what to feed Mordred, how to play with him, how to coax words out of him. Arthur approves wholeheartedly; other than that one day with Mordred, he doesn’t know the first thing to do with children. One of them should.

They’re eating blackberries, Arthur and Merlin, spread out on cushions pulled onto the floor from the settees in the living room. There’s a fire in the grate, gently flickering away, and in the shaft of sunlight through the window it heats the room just a little too much. Arthur is shirtless and Merlin has his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, kneeling next to Arthur and pushing blackberries into his mouth, until Arthur bats his hands away and Merlin can kiss the taste out.

When the phone rings they both start. Arthur pushes himself upright and goes over to the far side of the room to answer it.

“Arthur Pendragon.”

He recognises the voice on the other end of the phone as soon as she speaks. Merlin’s mother.

“I’m sorry for calling at such a strange time, but I didn’t want there to be a time limit on this call. I’m sure you’ll have many questions. It’s Mrs Emrys, from Kent council?”

“Yes, yes, of course. Have there been any developments?”

“Mordred has been removed from the King household. You were right, those conditions were not suitable for a child. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but the officers found a large amount of drugs. Cenred King has been arrested.”

“That is good news,” Arthur tells her, and allows himself a moment to smile in victory for Mordred. But he has to ask. “And what about his parentage? Is there any way to…”

Arthur trails off, unsure how to finish the sentence. On the other end of the line, he can hear Mrs Emrys’ slow intake of breath as she gathers her words. His skin prickles with goosebumps, and he stares out of the window across the garden, the sky iron grey and cold. His grip tightens on the phone and his knuckles whiten.

“There is a hearing scheduled for two weeks from now. You have until then to gather evidence and find a lawyer, and Morgause will have to do the same. I’m sending you the details through in the post.”

“Thank you,” Arthur says, unsure how he feels about the situation. He supposes it’s about what he expected, but the reality feels somehow different.

“Good luck, Mr Pendragon,” Merlin’s mother says. Arthur can’t understand why, but it’s comforting. It makes him smile.

“Thank you,” he tells her again, and he puts the phone down.

Behind him, Merlin reaches out for him, touches his arm and strokes over the skin.

“My mother?” he asks, sliding his hand over to Arthur’s chest, palm pressing into his skin. Arthur presses back into it.

“Yes. We have two weeks until the hearing.”

Arthur turns slowly in Merlin’s grip. He kisses him carefully, slowly.

“Do you know any good lawyers?” he asks. Merlin shrugs a little, and pulls Arthur in for another kiss.

\---

Arthur has an ambiguous advert in Monday’s morning paper. After that, all he can do is wait as the phone calls come in. He interviews on Tuesday and Wednesday; but each of the men he sees is an expert in corporate law. They are cold, emotionless men, without even the first idea how any family law works. In short, though they are perfectly qualified, they are useless to a man. Arthur doesn’t despair, not yet, but he feels the pressure of the lack of time. He needs to find a suitable lawyer and soon, or there won’t be enough time for them to prepare a case.

He puts another advert together, and waits.

\---

When the engineering department invites Arthur to watch the testing of the cars, his first thought is for Merlin. These cars are his crowning achievement, his pride and his joy. Talking about them, in meetings and lazily, in bed, Arthur has watched what they mean to Merlin. His excitement at each tiny stage in the process; it’s what the films tell Arthur a new parent feels. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, and Arthur treasures and respects it. So he knows that he cannot deny Merlin the sight of the real thing; finished prototypes in real metal and glass and paint. Not when he has an invitation to the testing track and a spare passenger seat in his car.

Arthur gets into work early. He knows he’ll be there before Merlin – after all, he’s just dropped Merlin off at his house after another night spent together. He takes a seat at Merlin’s desk, answering a few letters and memos as he waits. When Merlin gets into the office, Arthur looks up and smiles.

“Get your coat, we’re leaving.”

“Someone’s a bit corny this morning,” Merlin retorts, trying to hide his smile, “Where are we going?”

“Company business,” Arthur tells him, herding him out of the room, “It’s a surprise.”

They pass Gwaine on the way out. He takes one look at them both, and gives an all-encompassing wink. Merlin frowns, and turns to Arthur.

“Should I be worried?”

“No, no,” Arthur replies, all too airily for Merlin to be reassured at all. He grins when Merlin shivers.

“You’ll love it, come on.”

He takes Merlin to the multi-storey where his car is parked, refusing to answer any questions. Full of chivalry, Arthur opens the car door for Merlin and bows low.

“Your carriage awaits, my lord.”

Merlin snorts with laughter and gets in.

The test track is closer to the Newcastle factory than it is to the London offices. Arthur takes the M1 north out of London, breathing deeper and softer as he drives, comfortable and at home behind the wheel, with the great patchwork stretches of fields to either side of him. He turns the radio on, quietly; enough to catch the tune of the songs, but not loud enough to have to hear the insipid hosts babble on about anything and everything. Merlin hums, and Arthur taps his fingers against the steering wheel. Sometimes Merlin turns to watch Arthur drive and just smiles. Arthur doesn’t know what Merlin sees to make him look like that, but he doesn’t want it to ever stop.

“Yeah, you’ve really got me goin’,” Merlin sings, loud and sudden, “You’ve got me so I can’t sleep at night.”

Arthur bursts into laughter, loud and sudden, and Merlin grins and keeps singing.

“Stop!” he says, “Stop, or I’ll crash!”

“You won’t,” Merlin says, breaking out of song just for a moment, “I trust you.”

Arthur gets his own back a few miles later when Roy Orbison comes on singing Oh Pretty Woman, and he sings it, deadpan, to Merlin.

“Look at the road, Arthur!” he protests, a blush high on his cheeks.

“But you trust me,” Arthur says, pouting.

They both sing along to The Hollies after that, and it’s a truce.

They drive past Watford Gap Services and Merlin laughs out loud while Arthur puts some speed on and weaves through the other cars to give the diners a bit of a show. After that the journey quietens a little, and they settle into the drive.

“Should I be worried you’re kidnapping me?” Merlin asks after a while of silence. Arthur smiles at him, soft and reassuring.

“No, you shouldn’t. But it would ruin the surprise if I told you where we’re going.”

“So we do have a destination?”

“Oh, yes. You’ll like it, I promise.”

Arthur pulls into the test track around lunchtime. Merlin looks over at him, wide-eyed. The place isn’t signed, there’s nothing overt to show where they are, but the low garages and tarmac set into the field hint towards the use.

“Are we where I think we are?” Merlin asks, almost breathless with excitement.

“We are,” Arthur tells him. His cheeks hurt with smiling.

“I could kiss you right now.”

“Save it for later,” Arthur tells him, with a firm promise in his voice. He gets out before they can tempt each other further, Merlin following, and locks the car. A group of suited men are heading towards them from the main buildings, and Arthur goes to greet them.

“Arthur Pendragon, hello. I’m told you have some cars for me to look at.”

“Owain Jones, and this is my team. We’re happy to have you here, sir.”

Arthur takes his hand and shakes it, keeping it just a little firmer than comfortable.

“This is Merlin Emrys, my best designer,” Arthur explains.

“It’s good to meet you both. Can we offer you some lunch before we show you the cars?”

One glance at Merlin is all that Arthur needs to know.

“Cars first, Owain, food later.”

\---

The garage doors open slowly, heavily, with gravity. It’s almost like a stage curtain, revealing the cars behind. Arthur feels the brush of Merlin almost reaching out to grab his arm before he collects himself.

Three cars drive out of the garage, exactly as Merlin drew them, but somehow better in three dimensions and full size, with paint to guide the light over the curves. Merlin almost melts at the sight. Arthur watches him more than he watches the cars. They’re certainly beautiful, but they’re nothing compared to Merlin and his enthusiasm.

They watch the cars around the track, watch them go through test after test from up in the offices. Owain and the team quote figures and projections at Arthur and he talks business while Merlin listens quietly, sitting in the window pressed up against the glass like a child at a toy shop. They eat sandwiches and drink tea, Arthur slipping food over to Merlin, because if Arthur actually gives it to Merlin, if he puts it into his hand, he’ll actually eat it. And Arthur is good with cars, but he’s willing to admit that he’s nowhere near as knowledgeable as Merlin. When he doesn’t understand, all he has to do is glance over at Merlin and watch him smile and nod at the figure given, and know that the team is doing well.

They drive back with the radio a little louder, and a sheaf of initial reports in the back of the car. Merlin doesn’t talk for the first few miles. He’s like a child after a day trip, Arthur thinks, worn out and filled with his own thoughts. Arthur’s mind trails off to the problems that will face him when they get home; he has a few cashflow problems to solve, and the lawyer still to find.

Arthur guns it down the sliproad onto the motorway, takes a deep breath, and calms again.

“Today was perfect,” Merlin says, sudden and quiet, “Thank you. Don’t bother taking me back to the office.”

“Oh?” Arthur says, glancing over.

“I want to be with you.”

Arthur grins, and drives him home.

\---

“I heard you wanted a lawyer, Arthur,” Lance says, walking unannounced into his office and trailing a ridiculously tall and equally broad man behind him, “This is Percival Vaughn. He’s ideal for what you want.”

Arthur raises an eyebrow and takes a look at Percival. He’s hanging in the doorway, seeming nothing but shy. Arthur doesn’t want to doubt Lancelot, but he can’t help it. Percival doesn’t seem the sort to seize the victory in court.

“I’ll have to interview him,” Arthur says.

“How about now? Perce, that alright?”

“Of course,” he tells Lance. He seems to start at the volume of his own voice.

“Sit, please,” Arthur says, gesturing. Percival does.

They talk through his experience, surprising Arthur in how much it impresses him. So Arthur tells him about the situation, watches his face change as he displays every emotion. He knows Percival can’t be acting. Knows that no one can pretend to that level of involvement in the story. And he knows, too, that Percival must be able to turn it off, to switch out of his emotions or even to harness them to win a case. He wouldn’t have won quite so many if he couldn’t.

Arthur nods at him, once. This Percival is just what he needs; someone who will feel the case rather than just work through it mechanically.

“You have the case.” Arthur has copies of all the documents of the case ready. He doesn’t want to lose any time. He pulls the file from his desk drawer and passes it to Percival.

“You’ll be paid the advertised rate. The hearing is in a week and a half, and I will be accessible by the telephone at all times. You can call Miss LeFay to arrange further meetings, if you wish.”

Percival looks at him with wide, surprised eyes.

“Is that alright, Mr Vaughn?”

“Of course, sir.”

\---

With a lawyer now, the days seem to drag. There’s nothing Arthur can do, other than tell Percival all he knows. He finds himself tapping his fingers again, on his desk, on his armchair, over Merlin’s ribs. Days blur, and he knows he’s different, knows Merlin notices it and bears with it, somehow, and he wants to change but he can’t. Not with Mordred all but abandoned in an orphanage somewhere.

He calls Leon, for them all to meet at the pub. It feels safe; Arthur sits in the bench with Merlin pressed up against his side on the pretence that there’s not enough space around the table. Leon takes one look at the two of them and grins. Arthur smiles back, slowly. It’s nice to have some form of approval. Lancelot and Gwaine shuffle their chairs over a little, staying close, to let Leon into the table.

“Good to see you,” Arthur tells him, and he leans over the side of the bench to fill him in on the progress with Percival.

The conversation turns quickly. Arthur is grateful to them all; they know he needs distraction, and do all they can to provide it. And it works, for a while. Like everything has a time limit, these days.

Arthur knows it won’t last. It will be over when he knows, when Mordred is either his or not.

\---

Arthur doesn’t go to the hearing. He knows he could not stay silent when his son’s livelihood is at risk. But Morgana does.

It starts late afternoon on a Tuesday. Morgana tells him that Percival was perfect. There were opening arguments, and the start of the presentation of evidence. Gaius was interviewed.

“He did well with Percival, but when Morgause’s lawyer got to him it was horrible, Arthur. He only ever told the truth of course, but they spun it. They started asking him about how long he’d known the family.”

_“Well, I’d say about thirty years. At least. Certainly since long before Arthur was born.”_

_“And you’d consider Uther Pendragon a personal friend?”_

_“I would, yes.”_

_“So if Uther asked something of you, would you hesitate to follow his request?”_

_Gaius frowns now. He knows something is wrong with the question, but cannot quite see what._

_“It depends on the request.”_

_“And – remembering that you are under oath – if the request were illegal?”_

_Perhaps he is referring to the cover-up of Mordred’s birth, except that wasn’t illegal, not Gaius’ actions anyway._

_“It would depend on the request, again,” he says, because he can’t lie._

_“Would you give the same loyalty to Uther Pendragon’s son?”_

_And there it is. If Arthur asked Gaius to lie at the hearing, would he do it? But the problem is that Gaius would lie for Arthur. Under different circumstances, anyway. And if he lies in answer to this question, they will all know anyway._

_“It would depend on the request.”_

_The lawyer smiles, and changes tack._

_“You are not an obstetrician, are you, Dr Gaius?”_

_“No.”_

_“Then is it not strange that you were the sole medical practitioner at the birth of the child in question?”_

_“Not strange at all. I am the family doctor, and during my time as a GP I have delivered many babies.”_

_“But not the expert in his field one would expect Uther Pendragon to hire?”_

_“On the contrary. Uther trusts me.”_

_But the lawyer is smiling again. As if he thinks he’s won. Percival wears a frown, and it’s more than a little worrying._

“We expected this, Morgana,” Arthur says, as much to reassure himself as anything, “What did Percival do after that?”

“Well, nothing. The judge called for a break until tomorrow morning.”

“So we will have nothing until then?”

“Nothing. But Percival did say the rest of the evidence was strong. We just had to start on Gaius as our only independent witness, or something.”

“You’ll go back in tomorrow?” Arthur asks.

“I have to, Arthur. I can’t be away from it, not with Mordred so close.”

Arthur understands. He knows the fierce need to protect their child, wired into him from the moment he set eyes on Mordred; or perhaps even earlier.

The next day, Morgana comes to him with a smile she cannot seem to dim.

“It was brilliant, Arthur! Percival made it all look so obvious, he tracked the payments from Uther, he’d even found some evidence of Cenred selling drugs to show how he was using the gifts from Uther.”

Arthur shivers. He has made his decision, and he doesn’t regret it, but he still hates to think of his father’s mistakes. All he wants from Uther is for him to wake up and argue against it. Demand that he was in the right, that he was protecting his family. But by now Arthur has realised that Uther won’t wake just because Arthur wants him to. So he has to endure the damage to his father’s reputation, and tries not to think about what Uther will find when he does wake up. After all, Mordred outweighs all disadvantages.

“You should have seen Morgause’s lawyer. He looked like something had died in his stomach.”

“Vivid, Morgana, thank you,” Arthur mutters.

“After lunch it was Morgause’s turn. All they had was moaning.”

_“Regardless of whether or not Morgause King gave birth to this child, which she still maintains she did, she has acted as his mother for his whole life. For three years she has brought the child up as her own-”_

_“Objection,” Percival says, cutting the lawyer off mid-sentence, “Mrs King’s parenting is not in question. The child has already been removed from her keeping for his own safety. We are not fighting between the Kings and the Pendragons for who should have custody of the child. We are proving parenthood.”_

_The judge smiles slowly, and takes in the two lawyers._

_“Objection is held.”_

_Percival shoots Morgana a quick look of victory and sits again. Morgana watches the opposing lawyer squirm. That’s at least half of his argument blown away, she’d be willing to bet, and it shows._

_“We call our first witness, Dr Edwin Muirden.”_

_The man that walks in gives an immediate unsavoury impression. Half of his face is covered with terrible scarring, but that’s not the most unsettling thing about him. It’s his eyes, and the way he seems to look right through everyone in the room. He takes a seat and leans back into it, casual and unafraid. His hand barely brushes the Bible as he swears to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth._

_“Dr Muirden, you also claim to be present at the birth of the child in question, do you not?”_

_“I do.”_

_“And what connection do you have with the King family?”_

_“No personal connection. I am the family’s GP, but they visit me rarely.”_

_“So you have no personal motivation to lie for the Kings.”_

_“None whatsoever.”_

_The opposing lawyer sits, and Percival stands to begin his cross examination._

_“Dr Muirden, please describe the child at birth.”_

_Edwin splutters a little._

_“Well, he was just like any other newborn. Small, fat, a little tuft of black hair…”_

_Percival smiles._

_“I present a photograph of the child taken the day of his birth, found in Uther Pendragon’s records. He has no hair.”_

_“That isn’t evidence!” the other lawyer cries, outraged._

_“No more than the supposition of Dr Gaius’ loyalties.”_

_The judge calls them to order and they sit. Morgause’s lawyer scowls, but Percival has a small smile._

“And that was the arguments finished?” Arthur asks.

“That was it.”

“And a verdict?”

“Ah,” Morgana sighs, “Not until tomorrow. The judge is calling us back in at nine in the morning. You should come, Arthur. Mordred will be there.”

“I will,” Arthur says, beginning to smile a little.

\---

When they arrive at the council buildings Morgause is already there, leaning on the door of her car, sneering at them as they arrive. Her skirt doesn’t reach her knees, like a girl’s. She stubs her cigarette out as they get out of the car, grinding it out with the toe of her boot.

“You could have just said. I’d have given the bugger to you. But you had to ruin everything. You won’t get him, I’ve made sure of that.”

“I don’t think so, Morgause,” Arthur says, locking the car and taking Morgana’s arm to lead her into the offices. Morgause follows, and Arthur is almost certain he hears her muttering.

“That witch,” Morgana says.

“I could think of worse words to call her.”

Morgana tugs him into one of the meeting rooms, and there he is. Mordred, held in another’s arms, asleep and peaceful. He’s changed since Arthur saw him last, but not much. Arthur wants to sweep him up in his arms and hold him close, wants to pinch his soft cheeks and teach him how to play with a football.

But he can’t. Not yet. Not until they have a verdict.

He manages to tear his eyes away from Mordred’s face just long enough to notice the woman holding him. The eyes are what give it away. The hair’s a little lighter than he would have expected, but there’s something about the eyes and the shape of the chin that give it all away. Merlin’s mother. Arthur gives her a smile and a nod. She nods back, hands too filled with child to do anything else.

Morgause stops outside the door. She isn’t allowed in, since even if Mordred is declared hers she cannot take him home. It’s a small victory for Arthur, and he can’t avoid a private smile.

Arthur and Morgana take their seats next to Percival. They wait, anxious, for the judge. When he walks in the room he takes his time; sits, takes a sheaf of papers and orders them, taps them once on the table and looks up.

“This hearing is now in session, and I must give you a judgement. It has been a hard decision. After all, there has been no precedent for a case such as this. But I have ruled where I saw the truth to lie, and I hope that will benefit Mordred in the future. Mr Pendragon and Miss LeFay, you may take Mordred home. He is legally your son.”

For a split second Arthur cannot believe it. Cannot picture that all this work, all this effort, has actually achieved what he set out to do. That now there will be a rush of nappies and changing mats and beds and toys and redecorating; all to please their son. Because Mordred is coming home. His mind reels through list after list, ticking off things that they will need to buy on the way home, things he will have to leave Morgana and Mordred to purchase this afternoon, things that can wait. Instructions he will have to give out, announcements, people he will have to consult.

And then he looks up. And while he’s been fretting, Morgana has taken Mordred in her arms. He’s woken and is frowning but blessedly quiet. She’s smiling, wider than he’s ever seen from her before. And, as he watches them both, Arthur knows he wears a smile to rival hers. He gets up, and crosses first to Merlin’s mother.

“We couldn’t have done it without you,” he says, and he pulls her into a hug. There’s a little sound of surprise, but Mrs Emrys pats him on the back and reaches up to smooth down his hair.

“Well done,” she tells him, soft.

Arthur shoots her a grin, then walks away to join Morgana. He takes Mordred’s tiny hand in his, Arthur’s thumb dwarfing the whole fist, and he’s never felt quite so much like he belongs. This tiny creature; Arthur made him. And now he will shape Mordred into a man, into someone he will be endlessly proud of. He will love him and care for him; show him his value in a way that Arthur’s father never could, and he will watch Mordred grow. Most of all, he will protect his son, to make up for allowing him to be taken at the start. He let Mordred hurt once, but it will never happen again.

“We have him now,” Morgana whispers, wondering.

“I did promise,” Arthur says, “I will always look after you and yours and ours.”

Morgana smiles and kisses his cheek.

“Thank you.”

There’s some paperwork to sign. Arthur has to fill it out, and then it takes both their signatures; his first, then Morgana’s. He takes Mordred in his arms while she signs. He squirms a little, fully awake now, wanting to run around the table legs. Arthur adjusts his grip and keeps him close. It wouldn’t do for anyone to think he cannot control his son.

It’s only a moment, and then Morgana holds her arms out for Mordred. Arthur kisses him once, on the top of his head before handing him over. He smells like talcum powder.

They leave quickly after that, anxious to get home. Morgause is waiting in the car park with a cigarette and a snarl.

“Well, I hope you enjoy the brat,” is all she can say, and she glares at them as they get into the car and drive away. When Arthur reaches the main road, he glances over at Morgana, shaking a little next to him with Mordred in her arms.

“What is it?” he asks, shooting the gearstick nervous looks as Mordred flails his limbs.

“I never thought I’d lose my sister over this. I never really thought it through.”

“But you didn’t have any contact with her, ‘Gana. You haven’t lost anything.”

Morgana sighs and looks away from him, staring out of the passenger window.

“That was because of Uther. He wouldn’t let me call or write. Now he’s asleep I could have done.”

There’s silence for a moment while Arthur tries to imagine what it would be like, to find someone only to lose them again, to have them barred from you. But someone like Morgause, well, he can’t see the loss.

“But she didn’t try to get in contact with you,” he reasons.

“She made the first contact. After that it must have been my turn.”

It almost sounds fair enough, Arthur thinks, except that if Morgause really cared then surely she’d have tried, if only once. And there’s Mordred to think of too.

“She didn’t look after your son for you,” Arthur says, “You’re better off without her.”

Morgana hums like she doesn’t quite believe him.

“You have a family now,” Arthur says, “And all our friends. Is that not enough people who love you?”

Morgana shoots him a smile, and Arthur supposes that will have to do. Mordred twists in her arms again, and she’s quickly distracted, pointing out of the car window at birds and planes and telegraph poles to try to keep him amused. Arthur listens to their voices all the way back to London.

\---

##### December 1964

“The new advert came out today, Father,” Arthur says, a magazine open in his lap. The picture on the right hand page is a full spread of the new Albion Motors advert, their medium range car on a background of English oaks.

“I know it isn’t what you wanted, but I think you might grow to approve. The cars, well, you should see them, Father. They’re beautiful. The advert says Genuine British Design. I think you’d like the sentiment, at least.”

He pauses a moment to shut the magazine and place it to one side, putting business away.

“I have to leave earlier than usual Father. I’m sorry. It’s Mordred’s birthday and we’re having a party for him, I have to be there.”

He gets up carefully and brushes his hand over Uther’s.

“I’ll see you next week, Father.”

He doesn’t know if Uther can hear him but he has to visit, has to talk, just in case. He could never forgive himself if Uther woke and had felt alone the whole time. His father looked after him for so many years, despite their problems, so it’s his turn to look after Uther. It’s only fair. And if he can keep Uther updated about the business; well, businesses, it feels a little bit more like Uther has a say in things. Even if he cannot talk back.

He passes a billboard on the way home with the advert for their most expensive car. _Genuine British Craftsmanship_ , it says. Blown up, Arthur can still recognise Merlin’s hand. He can’t help but smile all the way back home. He concentrates as best he can, but he’s distracted by flashes of the night before.

\---

Merlin can’t move in, for fear of unwanted attention, and perhaps arrest. But he spends as much time as he can at the Pendragon estate regardless. He’s taken work home from the office over the weekend, and he turns up on the doorstep on Saturday afternoon sheepish, briefcase in hand. Arthur frowns when he opens the door, glancing down at the battered old case.

“I’ve brought work,” Merlin says, quiet, “I have to finish it for Monday and I know we’re going to be busy tomorrow…”

He trails off, watching Arthur for a reaction. Arthur just shrugs a little.

“I like watching you draw. It’s no worse than what I had planned.”

Merlin beams and pushes past Arthur, into the warm.

Arthur and Mordred seem to take it upon themselves to distract Merlin as much as possible, so it’s no wonder he still hasn’t finished the drawings when dinner is served. He doesn’t mind though, not judging on the way he smiles indulgently every time Arthur swoops Mordred past or comes to ask Merlin his _artistic direction on how to arrange the decorations for tomorrow._

After dinner, though, it’s a different story. Morgana takes Mordred for his bath and bedtime, and Arthur is left without a preoccupation. Rationally, he knows he cannot have Merlin until he has finished with the drawings, but he itches to follow Merlin up to the study just to be with him. Instead, frustrated, he turns the television on.

When Merlin sneaks back downstairs half an hour later, Arthur is curled up on the settee, eyes half shut, paying no attention to the program. Merlin can’t resist; he takes a marker from his back pocket and kneels next to Arthur, draws a long curve down his forearm. Arthur starts, pulling away from the pen.

“Merlin,” he says, still spooked. Merlin reaches out for his thigh, rubbing at it with his thumb, dissipating the tension.

“Want to sit?” Arthur asks. Merlin chews his lip.

“I think I’ve thought of a better way to relax. Will you come to bed?”

Arthur leans over the arm of the chair and kisses Merlin. It’s an awkward angle but Merlin wraps his arms around Arthur’s shoulders and licks out. Arthur moans and pulls back before they can get too caught up.

“Bed?” Merlin asks again, breathless. Arthur doesn’t answer, just stands.

Merlin turns on Arthur’s bedside lamps but nothing else. Arthur watches him, confused and intrigued.

“This will be fun,” Merlin says, “You just have to do what I tell you.”

A shiver goes through Arthur at that. Merlin notices it and his gaze darkens. He grins.

“Take your shirt off and sit on the bed.”

Arthur does as he is told, fumbling with the buttons until he can drop his shirt on the floor. He sits on the edge of the bed, and Merlin walks over. Inspects his chest, then takes the forearm he’s already started on. Kneeling in front of the bed he draws another curve, starts to let the drawing grow into a tree, branches stretching out mirrored by the long and twisted roots. Arthur sucks in a breath. He knew already that he loves to watch Merlin draw, to see the concentration in his face, the miraculous way a few lines combine to make something almost alive. But to feel the lines on his skin, too – Arthur can hardly contain how it makes him feel and stay still enough not to jog Merlin.

Merlin teases him, moving to his back next, long, twisting lines that make Arthur shiver. His side is next, short, sharp lines. Last, Merlin straddles Merlin’s lap and draws over Arthur’s heart. Arthur can’t look away from his face, and when he pulls the pen away from skin Arthur surges forward to kiss him. Merlin allows it for a moment, but shrinks back quickly.

“Take your trousers off and lie on your front,” he tells Arthur. Arthur rolls his eyes, but does as he is told.

Merlin kneels over him and starts drawing again, abstract patterns down the backs of his calves, a tight drawing on the inside of his thigh. Arthur’s breath speeds as Merlin hooks up his underwear to get to one arse cheek and draw. He doesn’t notice the shape of the image, only how each stroke makes him feel, like his skin is tighter and tighter. When Merlin pulls back Arthur finally gets to rub against the sheets, cloth balled up in his hands.

Merlin watches him, appraising. He tugs at Arthur’s hips to get him to turn over, keeps back so he can watch Arthur shift, fitful, as Merlin rubs his cock through his pants. He comes quickly, still feeling Merlin’s hands over him, arching off the bed as he does. Merlin’s eyes, when Arthur can see clearly again, are far too dark. He sits up quickly, undoes Merlin’s trousers to shove them down, and puts his mouth to Merlin’s cock. Merlin’s hands clutch at his hair, and he makes a high, almost whining noise. Arthur knows he won’t last much longer, so he sucks down harder, deeper, until Merlin whimpers and tenses. Arthur swallows down his come, then takes hold of Merlin’s shoulders to guide him down to the bed. Merlin rests his head on Arthur’s shoulder.

“Did you like?”

“Mmm, I liked,” Arthur murmurs, pulling Merlin just a little closer, “Just how I like you.”

Merlin smiles a little, and takes the words as an invitation.

“Arthur?” he whispers, barely audible, “I love you.”

All Arthur can feel is warmth, as if his soul glows at the admission. There’s a soft, white noise in his ears, in his mind, and he doesn’t think of Merlin’s reaction to his silence. The draft of cold air as Merlin draws back shocks him, and he tightens his grip on Merlin’s hips.

“No, no,” he says, then stops for a moment. Arthur knows what he feels, but there is something final about admitting it. After this point, there will be no going back. No use pretending that he is anything other than he is; head over heels for Merlin Emrys.

“I love you too,” Arthur says, the words stronger and clearer than he expected them to be. He draws Merlin closer again, and presses their smiles together for a kiss. He can feel Merlin’s heart beating through his chest, and it’s just as fast as Arthur’s pulse in his ears. Arthur tangles himself irrevocably with Merlin, and settles.

\---

The drive is packed with cars when Arthur pulls up, so he abandons the car on the drive and heads into the house.

“I’m back!” he shouts, stripping out of his scarf and boots and coat. Mordred walks into the hall at the sound of Arthur’s voice, trailing Merlin behind him.

“There he is,” Merlin says, and he reaches forward to kiss Arthur on the temple.

“Sorry I’m late,” Arthur says, returning the kiss and sweeping Mordred up for a hug, “Father was particularly talkative today.”

Merlin laughs and leads him through to the dining room. It’s a huge space when the main table has been pushed to the back of the room, and they’ve decorated it with streamers and balloons. Galahad seems taken by the balloons; the first thing Arthur sees when he walks in is Elaine pulling him away from the strings. Morgana is close by her, watching the doorway for Mordred. Gwaine’s started on the food already, so of course Lancelot is with him, standing close to his side. Leon and Gwen are left together, talking in one corner. There’s a pile of presents on a table, waiting for Arthur to arrive for Mordred to open, and music in the background. Arthur puts Mordred back down so he can go to play, and heads over to Morgana.

Galahad takes one look at Mordred and smiles, wide and unabashed like only a child can. He’s going through a particularly affectionate stage and he runs over, pulls Mordred into a tight hug and presses a wet kiss to his cheek. Mordred squirms, uncomfortable but happy.

The room is filled with colour, the bright, straight cut dresses of the women. The wrapping on the presents. The men’s jumpers, Gwaine’s especially. The streamers. The toys scattered over the floor. Mordred and Galahad themselves, switching from toy to toy, playing separate games beside each other.

“Is it time for the cake?” Morgana asks. Merlin breaks out into a smile at that, and Arthur notices. He’s like one of the children, really, Arthur thinks.

“Yes,” Arthur says, with a smile in his voice.

“Cake!” Merlin calls, and kneels down to talk to the children, “Cake time, boys.”

“Cake!” Galahad squeals, “Mummy, I have cake please?”

Elaine takes his hand to guide him over to the table.

“Of course you can have cake, sweetheart.”

Morgana follows with Mordred in her arms, keeping back to allow Arthur time to light the candles. He lights a cigarette while he’s there, and he takes a drag, and they sing.

_“Happy birthday dear Mordred, happy birthday to you.”_

Morgana blows out the candles on the cake for Mordred, and they all clap. Galahad laughs and laughs, and Mordred smiles. Morgana kisses his cheek and sets him down to cut the cake.

They open the presents next, Arthur holding an uncooperative Mordred in his arms and helping him to tear at the wrapping paper. After the first toy he wants to run away and play; he can’t imagine that there will be more. But there are, and his eyes widen further and further as each one is unwrapped before him. When Arthur finally lets him go, he keeps giving toys to Galahad, like he doesn’t know what to do with them. Or, for that matter, Galahad.

Arthur stays cross-legged on the floor and watches them play. It’s not long before he’s joined by Merlin with a plate full of food. He holds it out for Arthur to eat. Arthur smiles and kisses him softly before diving in. A little way off, Morgana talks to Elaine as they watch the children together. They’re like mirror images, Arthur thinks, hair tied up so the boys can’t grab at it, stud earrings, practical dresses. Arthur thinks that Morgana is more beautiful than ever like this, if only because she is so very happy. She has friends now, and she keeps herself away from the constant drudgery of secretarial work. She has Mordred to keep her occupied, and coffee mornings with Elaine and Galahad. They’re close, Arthur thinks. She and Elaine stand hip to hip. And he wonders if perhaps there’s something – but he won’t ask. He won’t question Morgana’s happiness.

Arthur watches as Lance and Gwaine cross the room, watches Galahad run past them on his way to Mordred. He sighs, and settles back to lean against Merlin. It’s home, he thinks; it’s that feeling that Christmas films would give him, all warm and blurry and overarching, flickering with the light from the fire. And he remembers his daydream in the conservatory, of their garden and the party, and it was all these people but somehow the reality of them is better. It’s flawed. Mordred doesn’t play well with Galahad, doesn’t know how to. And there’s the little tension underneath of Uther’s absence, even though he probably wouldn’t want a part of their cobbled-together, somewhat scandalous family. But to Arthur it seems pretty much perfect, all the same.

Happiness does not come in _one size fits all_. This is Arthur’s idea of home, and when Uther wakes he will have to find a way to accept that concept. Arthur won’t let go of it now.

He shuffles a little, drops his head into Merlin’s lap, and as Merlin starts to card through his hair Arthur closes his eyes. The house doesn’t feel so imposing any more, now it echoes with voices. Everyone will stay tonight, occupying most of the guest rooms. It seems just the right size for Arthur’s strange little gathering. They seem to fit, his makeshift family in his sprawling, eccentric house, like they were meant to be.

Arthur sighs happily, moves closer into Merlin’s touch. Everything he has worked for has built to this moment. Every sacrifice, every risk. Every moment of work. And it’s-

He loses the train of thought when he hears Galahad cry out and snaps his eyes open to the sight of Mordred running altogether too much in the direction of the fireplace. Before he even realises he’s doing it, Arthur is on his feet, running across the room to catch him. He picks up a toy train from the ground to distract Mordred, and they start to play. Merlin shoots him an amused glance from where he still sits on the floor, popping pieces of pineapple into his mouth.

“There,” Arthur murmurs to Mordred, keeping one hand on his back but his eyes locked on Merlin, “You’re safe now. I’ll always catch you.”


End file.
